Trio of Hurricanes Heading to WJHC

It has been a long time since Lethbridge Hurricanes fans had a vested interest in the World Junior Hockey Championships. When I say “long time”, I mean “nearly a decade.”

The Hurricanes were last represented in the annual tournament by Luca Sbisa in 2010. This year, they will have three players representing them, as Dylan Cozens and Calen Addison will suit up for Canada while Oliver Okuliar will play for Slovakia.

A total of eleven Lethbridge players previously played in the tournament and in this blog, we will take a look back at their performances.

It all started with Wes Walz in 1990. The Czechs were the scoring machines that year, including Robert Reichel, Jaromir Jagr and Bobby Holik, but it was Canada that took home gold with Walz notching five points in seven games.

Five years later, Lee Sorochan brought home gold with Canada. The defenseman picked up an assist in seven games on a blueline anchored by Bryan McCabe, Jamie Rivers and Wade Redden.

The first non-Canadian player representing the Lethbridge Hurricanes was Tomas Kopecky, who actually did it three times between 2000 and 2002. In 21 games for Slovakia over those three years, Kopecky picked up five goals and nine assists. The future Detroit Red Wings forward and his teammates couldn’t muster anything better than an 8^th place finish.

Fan favourite Brent Seabrook went to the World Juniors twice. In 2004, he had a goal and two helpers in six games as Canada won silver. The next year, he came back as part of that all-star team that won gold. The future Chicago Blackhawks mainstay won gold with three assists in five games for a Canadian team that featured Sidney Crosby, Patrice Bergeron, Ryan Getzlaf, Jeff Carter and Dion Phaneuf. And of course, we know it wouldn't be the last time Seabrook would represent Canada on the international stage.

That same year, the Hurricanes had some international representation as well in the form of Michael Gulasi. The Czech Republic defenseman picked up two helpers in a bronze medal-winning performance.

Speaking of the Czechs, they had the next two ‘Canes. Tomas Kudelka scored once in six games during the 2006 tourney. He was joined by Lucas Vantuch in 2007, with Kudelka picking up three points while Vantuch went pointless in four games.

Zach Boychuk has a couple of gold medals to his name. The Airdrie native was held off the scoresheet in the 2008 tournament but came back in 2009 to wear an ‘A’ and had seven points in six games in the tournament everyone will remember for Jordan Eberle’s last-second goal against the Russians.

2009 also saw the first Hurricanes goaltender taking part in the WJHC. Juha Metsola was spectacular in the net for Finland, posting a 1.47 GAA and .939 save percentage in four games.

And the aforementioned Sbisa suited up for Switzerland for three-straight years. As a 17-year-old, he was held pointless in 2008. The same thing happened in 2009 as the Swiss were in the relegation bracket and again in 2010, although he was donning the captain’s ‘C’ in that final year, which saw him traveling all over the world.

How will Cozens, Addison and Okuliar measure up to their predecessors? We will find out starting on Boxing Day.

From Axel to Koletrane

Who doesn’t remember Axel Blomqvist?

I mean, the guy was huge when he was chosen 17^th overall by the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the 2012 CHL Import Draft. At the time, he was 6’5” and would later be listed at 6’7”. Only a trio of other players I could find measured up that tall in Hurricanes history, including Mike Varhaug, Adam Johnson and Gavin McHale.

The behemoth made an impact upon arrival, picking up 33 points and 66 penalty minutes in 59 games in his first season in North America.

Blomqvist added 13 points in 19 games in 2013-2014 before being traded with a conditional WHL bantam draft pick in 2016 to the Victoria Royals for a fourth round and an eighth round pick in the 2014 draft.

It appears that conditional pick the Hurricanes sent to Victoria was in the seventh round, which the Royals used to select Mason Kruse, who didn’t see any action in the WHL.

As for the Hurricanes’ haul, they used that fourth round pick, 84^th overall to select current defenseman Koletrane Wilson. That worked out alright.

With that eighth round pick they acquired, the Hurricanes actually traded it back to Victoria for an eighth round pick in 2015. They would go on to use that pick on forward Tristan Jones, who has ten points in 17 games for the Westshore Wolves in the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League.

Now, I thought I’d dig just a little deeper on this trade tree and show just how much of an impact Blomqvist is still having on the WHL.

He was later traded with two picks from Victoria to Moose Jaw for Alexey Sleptsov, Justin Paulic and a sixth round selection in the 2015 draft.

Moose Jaw used those two picks to take Louis Jamernik in the third round of the 2015 draft and Cory King with the fifth round pick in 2017. Jamernik is with the Okotoks Oilers while King has three points in 20 games for the Warriors this season.

The pick sent to Victoria is a bit of a mystery. Moose Jaw’s actual pick was used by Everett, who chose Dawson Butt. The problem is: I haven’t been able to track down exactly how that pick came to be.

The Royals did make a selection in the sixth round and that was Luke Bast, a former Brooks Bandit who is now at the University of North Dakota. The problem there is the same: I haven’t been able to figure out exactly how that one came to be because that pick originally belonged to the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

I’ll update you if I figure out this little mystery.

Mint Condition

Early last week, I tweeted a picture of an unopened box of 1990-1991 7^th Inning Sketch WHL cards and asked if I should open it.

Of course, it was kind of a rhetorical question because I knew I was going to open it, but it sure got a lot of people talking about it and reminiscing about some of the names that could be in all of those packs.

Hey all! @JoeMcFarland checking in here. Found this box of @TheWHL cards from 1990-1991. Should I open them? #WHL #hockeycards pic.twitter.com/nwBFNiWOmC

— Canes This Week (@CanesThisWeek) November 29, 2019

Even Jordan tweeted back saying he hopes this edition of the blog will just be me giving a play-by-play of me ripping into each of the foil wrappers.

Sorry to disappoint buddy, but I wasn’t going to bore your audience to tears with that. However, I am here this week to give you a bit of a recap.

And I will start with the very first pack opened and the very first card that appeared. To my surprise and delight, it was none other than former Kamloops Blazer and NHL defenseman Scott Niedermayer.

The second card featured Victoria Cougars forward Larry Woo, who is the father of current Calgary Hitmen blueliner Jett Woo.

Dean McAmmond and Hardy Sauter were also a part of that first pack, so not bad in the grand scheme of things.

Given this is a Lethbridge Hurricanes podcast, I’ll cut to the chase on the story around the cards from the team. It took until the fourth pack before I finally saw Jamie Pushor’s card in my hand. Interestingly, many of the packs opened had several players from the same team inside. So in that pack with Pushor, I also found Scott Adair, Allen Egeland, Jason McBain, Jason Widmer and Darcy Werenka.

The next pack also featured a handful of Lethbridge players, including Kevin St. Jacques, Jason Ruff, Rob Hartnell, Lance Burns and a checklist featuring Ruff.

In fact, those packs pretty much repeated themselves further through the box, so now I have doubles and, in some cases, triples. So if anyone wants to make a trade or two, drop me a line!

As for some of the other star power found in the box, look no further than Brandon Wheat Kings goaltender Trevor Kidd, Spokane Chiefs star Ray Whitney, Medicine Hat Tigers netminder Chris Osgood, Swift Current Broncos speedster Geoff Sanderson and Portland Winterhawks forward Steve Konowalchuk.

Plenty of coaches in the mix as well, including former Pronghorns bench boss Greg Gatto in a Portland jersey. And a dapper Seattle Thunderbirds coach and GM looking skyward. His name: Peter Anholt.

It’s a pretty cool throwback to see some of these cards. No Cooperalls but plenty of mullets to go around.

Like I said, if you want to make a trade or two, drop me a line. And if you know someone who is a super-Hurricanes collector, let me know. I’d love to profile them in an upcoming episode of the blog.