Barn Burner: Boomer & Pinder with Rhett Warrener - The Changing Landscape For Hockey Prospects Ft. Bert Gilling, Luke Strand & Fred Harbinson

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Ryan Pinder sits down with three coaches — Bert Gilling (MRU Cougars), Luke Strand (Minnesota State), and Fred Harbinson (Penticton Vees) — for one-on-one conversations about the changing landscape of hockey prospects.With new pathways available, the traditional routes to the pros are shifting. From the WHL to NCAA, to the rise of NIL deals and cases like Gavin McKenna heading to Penn State, the future for young players is evolving fast. Each coach shares their unique perspective on what these changes mean for prospects, programs, and the game of hockey itself.Subscribe to @Flames_Nation on Youtube🚨➡️ / @flames_nation 🔥 After Burner ➡️ • FlamesNation Afterburner 📲 Follow us:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fnbarnburner/X (Twitter): https://x.com/barnburnerfn?lang=en🎧 Listen on:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/barn-burner-boomer-pinder-with-rhett-warrener/id1648562889Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Mc6Qd5U22R2zbMlQ7RxIiBARN BURNER BLONDE https://originbrewing.myshopify.comFLAMESNATION MERCHhttps://nationgear.ca/collections/flamesnationBARN BURNER SHORTShttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj_bcGtvvo-cW2DHEDZ6dEO5ePDmlhZc9SHOUTOUT TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 Powered by @bet365. Whatever the moment, it’s Never Ordinary at bet365. Download the App today and use promo code:NATION. http://www.bet365.ca/ 👍🏼 McLEOD LAW https://www.mcleod-law.com/👍🏼 VILLAGE HONDA https://www.villagehonda.com/👍🏼 OUTDOOR DENTAL https://www.outdoor.dental/👍🏼 ORIGIN BREWING https://originbrewing.ca 👍🏼 Crystal Waters Plumbing Company https://crystalclearcalgary.com/👍🏼 BON TON MEATS: https://www.bontonmeatmarket.com/index.html👍🏼 GRETA YYC: https://www.gretabar.com/locations/calgary#games 👍🏼 Invest-Med: https://invest-med.ca/👍🏼 Alberta Teachers’ Association: https://www.stoptheexcuses.ca/👍🏼 The Hearing Loss Clinic: https://hearingloss.ca/👍🏼 Vena Nova https://venanova.com/Reach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!Producer: Jack Haverstock#NHLPlayoffs #Hockey #HockeyTalk #Playoffs #StanleyCup #EdmontonOilers #StanleyCupFinal #NHL #CalgaryFlames Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, buddies, welcome to another summer long form here on Barnburner presented by Bet365. Whatever the game, it's never ordinary with Bet365. And today we dive into an incredibly evolving and changing hockey landscape. If you were a junior age player, even a year ago, your options and your route you would be developing on was pretty clear. If you played major junior, anywhere in the CHL, you were ineligible to play college hockey. that one little tweak has changed. And as a result, the developmental landscape for young hockey players is incredibly different.

Today we're going to check in with three different head coaches to see what they're seeing with the changes in hockey eligibility. We'll check in with Luke Strand, the head coach of the Minnesota State Hockey Club. Also Fred Harbenson, the head coach and general manager, president of the Penticton viz. They were a junior team, Grimmy Kids for college, and have now moved to the WHL for this upcoming season.

and also check in with Bert Gilling, the head coach of the Mount Royal University Cougars. A lot changing, landscape shifting. These three men are right in the thick of it. Let's see what they're learning about the new rules around developing young hockey players in North America. Our first guest is the head coach of the Minnesota State Men,

Cato NCAA Hockey Club. It is Luke Strand, former Flames Assistant of the Abbotsford Heat. Luke, thanks for joining us. Great to see you. How are you, buddy? I love it. It's, uh, all is well here. Things are getting rolling, which is good.

Good to have the guys back. See the weights of their eyes is always special time. Yeah, fair enough. Another year coming. This show, we're going to be chatting with Fred Harbenson from the Penticton vs, who obviously had a long time in junior A college prior to that at St. Cloud. And now off to the W.HL with their expansion into Penticton. And also we'll chat with Burke Gilling, who's going to join us from the Mount Royal Cougars

to just sort of figure out what's changed with the eligibility. rules. First off, though, tell us what your program, tell us with the team and how long you've been there as the skipper behind the bench. Yeah, it's good. It's year three here. I had one entitled in USHL in 22. Then we went to Ohio State as an assistant coach. We lost out the NCAA tournament there. Opportunity became about here and the fit was right back in the footprint of my life. So Nankato was south Minneapolis by about an hour. Perfect little town, college town, 15,000 students sold out barn, a great setup for a young man to develop, not only as a player, but as a person and everything under one roof. It's a one-stop shop. It's about as

pros you can get day-to-day around here with development-wise. And a big picture for us, taking a huge pride in making people's careers last longer. So if we can get them to the American League so they can stretch in the NHL, great. If they can go directly to the NHL, wonderful. If they got to go to Europe for a first stop, that's a good stop, too. Okay. So I got a couple of Flames related questions for at the end, but let's start with the last 12 months. I don't know when exactly the whispers started about eligibility rules, but I suppose, you know, the portal was a new thing. And NIL, I guess money or rights for players is a big thing.

And I think that probably led us to the path where it's like, well, hey, why? because a kid makes a couple hundred bucks a month playing junior hockey in Canada, if you're not playing CAA, you know, you would have seen decades of the old version and were very, very early into a new set of rules that I think of a lot of people asking questions since the show today. So what was the last year like? And did you get a sense that this was inevitable or was it always going to be like, we'll see?

Yeah, I mean, kind of a fire hose. The idea that, you know, especially here, I'll use us as an example. You take over a program. You're trying to get ahead in recruiting. because when the old crew, when they moved on, you had some coverage to fill. So we got ahead of that. And then the dynamic change is where the CHL kids become eligible. The portal becomes a larger opportunity for players to leave.

Not only if a coach left, you could jump in the portal, meaning you can fit schools without penalty. Now you can switch schools without penalty with or without a coach leaving, just out of happiness or situation, whatever that may be for a young man and a family and a, and an agent. So that part has come across the board for us. It definitely changed the dynamic. You can probably, I would consider, reload a little bit quicker, maybe through the portal. A lot of times just players leaving places for opportunity that maybe they didn't get somewhere else. And then I think you've got to be really good in decision making that that is still going to be the right fit when they come here. Just because it didn't work somewhere else, doesn't mean it wouldn't fit here or vice versa. someone coming in or out. So you got to do your homework. I think there's a really good track and

trend of a kid. You probably saw some trends through their junior career into early college. Does that make sense when your lineup at your timing? Can you balance some classes maybe with the portal? But then the CHL is a whole different animal because now you opened up a pool of players that never existed before, that it was in the path of non-college that they're now eligible to go to college plus or minus some stipulations. Right. Okay. So when was it like, okay, this is happening, we got to get as many eyeballs as we can

up into can or maybe even you as the head coach be like, you know, I got to get my butt up to Canada to start looking at some of these kids. And I suppose even like Pacific Northwest and there's some OHL teams that are in the States as well. But like all of a sudden this huge player pool that, you know, you might have some intel on, but you're not recruiting all of a sudden like this is going to become available. Yeah, I think you start to, um, It was probably last fall we dug into making sure, you know, this spring prior.

So the spring of 20, what, four? Yeah. It would have been a kind of heads up. This could be happening. So you dug, you dug in, you did homework. You saw some players. You saw some, oh, who was in maybe in that pool of players? Who would be coming out at this time as overagers?

Because I think at first the thought was like, okay, these guys will stay. They'll play through their 20 or 19 minimally, and then they'll leave. And then now it's turned into guys are jumping out earlier than that, to coming to college. And I don't know. It's a path for everyone to choose. You can do scouting is one thing. Evaluating talent.

That's a whole business in itself. Making sure that the right guy for the right reason at the right time, that's the actual business, in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely fair. And look, we've seen some really high profile cases, you know, Caden Lidstrom and Gavin McKenna, Reshny, Verhoff. These are all like guys that have or are expected to be high profile first rounders, some of some flames ties, a lot with Alberta ties. And those are high profile. But in the instance of all those guys, you've got to want to go be a college student.

It isn't just like, hey, I'm going to play hockey. It's like, well, okay, well, have we done SATs or your grades there? You know, I think that's a piece. Some people forget, there are still going to. to be elite, elite 1819s and the CHL that college isn't for them, I suppose. So just to go scout a good player doesn't mean that's going to be a college player. All day. You know, a big part of it was I think the older the player right now in the CHL,

the less probably NCAA-minded they were because they got in for a reason. The NCAA was never an option. I think that will shift now. I think there's going to be some kids that keep a pretty good NCAA priority in their life as far as academics goes to make sure eligibility of their opportunity. Even if you didn't want to go, it'd be crazy not to keep NCAA opportunity just as leverage along the way, I guess, would be an easy site. And then I end all, I think it doesn't matter for it's here, other places in the NCAA. Like the numbers have shown, the timing is shown, the percentage of players playing in the NHL that have come through college doors is risen.

And it's risen pretty rapidly on the idea of time. And time's on your side. Scheduling is probably on your side as far as training, development. And I'd be the first one to say, I'm usually am the first one. I wish we played more games, but we don't. But what it does give you is more time as a human to be ready when they want to make that jump. And I do think for some of the young guys, if they've mastered maybe a level, CHL included, but then now you've got to go face off against a 22, 23, 24-year-old.

That's a different game. And if you're not getting using up, and if I'm a club in the NHL, I want to go place a player with us. Why wouldn't you believe in the development path that was here without having to pay that athlete, make that kind of our burden, and then they take the fruits of the labor at something? Yeah, sure.

Do you see the college game getting less three, four year program view versus like with the portal and with now major junior players being eligible, that it's maybe one and two year windows that you can't really go beyond because there's so much player movement. like I think traditionally when you know most of your life you'd recruit a kid and you'd probably have them four or five years maybe he needs an extra junior maybe you can play a fifth year

there's gonna be a lot of kids that play at a program for one or two years and that used to be the outlier with the likes of Jonathan tapes it was I mean the guys that did were the guys that turned pro they weren't leaving school to school or maybe tearing it up here and someone had a bigger paycheck to pay them somewhere else that didn't exist now it does exist um I think there's probably if you rewound that conversation be like okay what what got me there what believed in to me to be at this point in my life that i did develop that i did take off then now all of a sudden someone can come in and buy i think that's going to come down on the people i think you'll probably see less for your players it's on a program in my opinion to probably find some balance um the balance that

that lies between you know how many one year guys am i going to have two you guys three your guys and can you get a fourth and now guys are especially in the states um probably accelerate in school along the way a little bit, that COVID opportunity to be an online student, really, I think sprung board some kids to get ahead. So there's a lot of kids that are graduating in three years. In our case here, our guys come here, they train in the summer, they take summer course, because they take summer course or able to get a scholarship in the summertime, well, all of a sudden, now our job for me is to make them graduate and be a pro. So if we can get them anxious closer to graduation at the same time miles ahead development-wise to become a

pro you're kind of tying two to not so one time what are you seeing as the potential follow because i think it's easy for people to guess but just your experiences with it i mean i've talked to a bunch of different people in different sort of facets of player development and that sort of junior collegiate age level and is it harder to get a commitment are you worried about someone reneging Clearly players have a lot of options. That means agents have a lot of options and leverage. Like, are you weary of that a little? Or is it just go back to that homework where you make sure this is the right person?

And, you know, if that's the case, you're less likely to see them say, well, actually, I got this offer in this league for whatever. I think you've seen it happen daily. I mean, personal experiences here. We've had schools come in and take players that are going to enter years of freshman. They offer them a bigger payday than probably what we can do. maybe that's maybe that's money to a family

that's really important, which is, that's who might as say, how am I to control that part? I'd go toe to toe with the idea like what they would get here day to day. That'd be a different story. But if you're talking like, you know, some wealth gain that how do you argue, I think, in some regard?

But then on the other side, you know, you see now guys, you see the young man that's going to Michigan that just left late in Kitchener. I do think we'll find some players maybe that came down from the CHL this year because of just maybe the in-between time, that made me find out the school wasn't cut out for them, even though they could do it. It's just like, that wasn't my plan.

That's not the direction I was going. So we probably were a little more passive and just observation-wise. We want to make sure we're seeing what we saw and believed in what we believed in before we jumped in with both feet. Now, we have other recruits that have left spots that are now going to go play in the CHL. and good for them. We're excited about that opportunity for them to come back here. Yeah, and I do wonder what the USHL's role in all this. We'll talk with a U-S. sports coach,

and they're having to deal with, you know, they used to get, you know, anyone that wanted to go to college and played major, that's your pool. Well, that's changed all of a sudden, but the USHL is the flip side of that, where if you wanted to go to NCAA, that was an incredible option for American players. And now the CHL is like, yeah, yeah,

you can still go to college. Come on up. Like, do you have any sort of, I don't want to say like bold proclamations, but like fears or thoughts or wonders about who the winners and losers are going to be in all this? Yeah, you know, I'd maybe too early to say like a definitive moment of that, but, you know, I worked in the USHL for a very long time and did tons of pro where a lot of CHL kids came in. I don't know. I think it's a personal, like, what's going to fit, what hat is going to fit them?

I don't know if it's a one-stop shop. I don't believe that somebody just because Joey did is going to work perfect for Jimmy and vice versa, that direction. You know, I do think there's probably going to be some adjustment period for both. Like, you should walk into, if you ever went to it as a college guy, you went to a CHL game, you wore zero possible logo with a hat pulled down to your nose because you didn't really want someone to know that is, you know. And now, I think the biggest threat is, are you going to take them before their draft eligible? You can take them before their 19-year-old year. That's probably the alarming heads up on their side.

We'd be my guess. Yeah, well, and there's finances to play on both sides. So for the teams in Major Junior, if your players selecting the first round, there's significant, you know, what? Remuneration, remuneration, like they get some cash for that. And so if they're starting to lose guys in draft year, it's like, ooh, all of a sudden you can be the big, bad wolf.

And then the flip side is, as you alluded to, this NIL money in the portal, now other schools can poach guys that normally they have, to sit out to get a year eligibility back or whatever. Explain the NIL money thing to us because it's totally foreign to Canadians. Like how does it work? Who has it? How much can they allocate?

And what are the sort of numbers that you're hearing for, you know, elite hockey players that they can sort of pick and choose a bit? Well, I mean, you hear big numbers out of Penn State and some kind of numbers that are that are large. If you opted into the House settlement, meaning you're going to go through the rules and regulations. The NCAA is setting up for roster limitation and revenue sharing. Your revenue of your athletic department, I believe, is just over $20 million. However, they get split up to whatever sports are big on your campus. Like, it could be larger for a school that's got a bigger football

program. It might be better for hockey school that's maybe a little more prominent than football. Maybe it's heavy basketball in that regard, too. So that revenue share, it allows direct payment for the athlete from the school above and beyond. So to your point earlier, you know, where a CHL kid was deemed inelible, even though they made a couple hundred bucks a month, that's gone out of the fact of now they can get that direct payment from the school. And now on the NIL side, there's something called NIL Go, which is a new mechanism where there was really no fair market value.

You could say, like, pins, you're going to get $100,000. to sign autographs this afternoon. And there was no one that could really put a gate down on. Now they're trying to, I think, put a little bit of rails on what is appetite for marketing. What is appetite for a signing bone? What would be an appetite for a car deal? Like, they're trying to put some rails on what's out there.

And from what I know and from others, it's a little bit blind experience because what someone might get okayed for, someone might not get okayed for as well. Elsewhere. Yeah, interesting. Okay, I want to get to a couple Flames questions in here, but a few more just on the eligibility change. I think when you look at the options available, you could certainly argue that the players are big winners. And I guess by virtue of being related to them, the agents and or family representatives are big winners here in the sense that you can be paid in your teens quite politely in theory to play hockey, where before that just wasn't really on the team. table unless you're Austin Matthews. You go to Switzerland when you have late birthday and there's a million things that coincidentally fall right. Do you worry it all about, you know, we're already talking about a new generation of athletes.

And I know you sort of have a little more of an old school bend to the way you want to play the game and the characters that you really, you know, enjoy watching play the game. If the littlest thing goes wrong, are you sort of worried that this is a slippery slope and now the agent's like, we're going to the portal. I'm taking them back to major. Like you do want to see your athletes have. to struggle through things and persevere rather than just throw their hands up and say, I'm out of here, right?

I do. I think it's, I don't like the fact that the eject button is right next to them. At least there was a mechanism in place. Like if you really wanted to leave, you had to sit. That was how the old rule was. I wanted to go from Minnesota State to Duluth. Sure, I could do that, but I had sitting here in the interim. Maybe some things of that nation where you get one free portal to go.

and if you shift another school, you get a penalty. That could happen. I don't know where that's all at, but there is probably some concern. I mean, you know, contractually, if you're, if a pro player decides, like, what am I going to do, knock on your door and say, Connie, I'm not going to come to work today because I want to go to that trade. Well, there's some holdback, right? I mean, there's a little bit of, there's a mechanism in place to take care of that we don't have that. And I don't think it helps the athlete.

I don't think it helps the mental fortitude that it takes to become a real long-time pro if your easiest thing is to hit, see you later. Yeah, fair. I want to touch on a couple flames while we got you. I remember when Marty Pospisal started making waves in the organization and you're like, I love this kid. And, you know, I'm trying to think. I don't want to, you know, date you in terms of, you know, you've coached a lot and seen a lot of kids. But you probably had that player coach relationship with hundreds, if not, close to a thousand players.

And it sounds like Marty still cracks the top five fingers if you had to name them. What about Pospicil makes you smile? Everything for me. I loved, you know, when he came over to the States from home, I was the first story landed on. And I thought the timing of his life to grow up and see and be away from home for the first time. I think just to have some adversity in his life in the hockey world. You know, he had gone from home to Red Bull to us.

It was a little bit of a journey in the middle, but just the growth. I think the way he treated adults, the way he was, I don't know, I always call him like dumb as a fox. Like he knew everything that was going on and acted like he knew nothing was going on. But he knew everything that was going to happen. I enjoyed that you want to get better. I love the day that, you know, you get inside the boards. there was a Martin Poss Whistle that wasn't like the guy that was in the street or the crowd with the kid that was helping him tie his shoes.

That was a really cool point. I remember going through that with, you know, at the time Jimmy Cummins would be around because he had the U.S. and in the building. And I don't know how you could miss with a kid that was that determined daily to get better. And that had a chip on his shoulder because he wanted it, he wanted it really bad. he's kind of a master of the dark arts too i know you for those to not having them yeah we uh we had some good moments it would be like not now pass and then it was too late and like oh that happened already so can you there was a there was a moment they were being suspended

it was like a pretty routine battle for him to get through yeah fair enough uh injuries has been a big thing too there it feels like what he's available you love him but when you factor in suspensions and injuries it's like god he's got to walk a a fine line because he's going to, the way he plays, guys are going to want to fight him. And the way he plays, he's going to probably have to talk to George Perros every other year. That does feel like the secret sauce. If you could figure that out, hey? It is.

And it's maturity. I mean, you can see for me, you know, I know we were going back and forth a little bit on POSC. I think there's part of him that didn't want to lose a spot in the lineup. So I think maybe, man, I can't be suspended because someone else might come in and take my job. And now I think he's get a little more footing that way where, the old Marty might come back the Marty party could happen for you guys up there that edge of his though is

I don't know it's an old school trait that's not always and for me that working in the organization that that was a flame that was like you were a flame when you dance right on that edge and he does that. Yeah, fair enough. Another guy I wanted to ask about Sam Morton

he kind of was an unheralded spring free agent signing a couple springs ago but looked pretty darn good not young, but you just basically said, you know, I understand the odds of stack again, but I'm just not betting against this guy. I would bet on on Morty every day. I think I'm kind of back to POS. Like he's a very determined kid.

I think they're way different animals as far as maybe IQ and sliness and age and maturity about their game. Like Morty plays an older game already as a young player in the league and things. but he's just an absorbing information guy that can go apply. And that's not every day for a lot of players can take things in, but they can't make it go to work for himself. And same thing. You hope that he's durable enough because he's got enough edge on the end of his blade

to his shoulders that are, it's important part of his game, but he can't get stuck playing that way all the time. Yeah, and you would have one year, your first in Mad Cato? Yeah, my first year here. He was our captain. I mean, there was a moment there maybe where he, when he stuck in the code, when Mike Haysons left, he went to Wisconsin, Morty stayed. And for me, I'm grateful, forever grateful for that move of his.

What a class matured aside. But he'd gone through an injury. And that, from where he was at at that moment, he wasn't even a factor to be a pro at the end that year. That's how far behind he was out of injury. His self-determination for rehab and come back and come back through. and he was player of the year in our league and signed with the flames at the end of the year. And now, you know, got a crack at it.

I hope he can get his foot in the door and be healthy at the right time because there's been some unavailable times for him too. Yeah, fair. And you know what he plays center? That's going to help. It's the center of both sides of the puck, too. Both ends in the rink, both sides of the puck. I think he can play with good players. I think he can shut down good players.

But there's enough transition in his game where he doesn't spend a lot of time in his end. and he knows how to play the game the right way. Yeah, fair enough. Appreciate your time. How's the squad looking this year? You sent me some team building activities. That means we're close. We're getting close.

The whites of their eyes are there. We like our group. Last year we lost in the NCAA tournament to Western and double overtime. We went on and won the whole thing. And we want to be back in that seat again with the Deverellcome. Yeah. Well, best luck this year.

Always appreciate your insights. And I know for those close, of the Flames organization that saw you in the miners and then doing some scouting for the club. A big hello from everyone in Calgary and hope to see you up here recruiting soon. Yeah, meaningful time. Those are a great, great chapter of my life with the Flames. Thanks, Luke. Appreciate it.

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Head to their website, crystal clearcalgary.com. Crystal Waters, plumbing, and heating is your crystal clear choice for home comfort. Back to the show. time for part two of our development on player development and the changing landscape here in 2025. Super excited to welcome in, Bert Gilling, the head coach of the Matroil University Cougars coming off a great year. Bert, good to see you this summer. How are things going? Good, good. You know, we have a pretty long offseason from the end of the school year in April to now. But the university's starting to fire up. We've been doing camps for a couple of weeks.

guys have all kind of checked in for the most part this week, getting a lot of testing done. And we kind of call it a soft start, like a slow start. We kind of build up once we get into September. So all is good on this end. Excellent. I wanted to give you a chance to talk about your program. We allowed the same to Luke Strand from Minnesota State, Mankato. We'll do the same for Fred Harbenson coming up later as well.

But how long you've been in MRU? And, you know, I think we all want to build programs rather than just teams year over year. or what makes the MRU program special? Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, just I think part of the story is where I came from as well, right? So I came from my first coaching job when I got out of college. I was an NCAA guy at Duluth playing. And then I was a assistant coach at the Midgey State University,

a Division I program in Minnesota, came here in 2014, pursue a head coach opportunity, and what attracted me about Mount Royal at that time, they were two years into the university level. At that time, it was referred to as CIS, now it's U-Sport. That changed in 2016. But there's a chance, you know, to build a program here. There are two years in, typical struggles of a program,

trying to get, you know, trying to get a new standard of play, playing at the highest level of university hockey in Canada. And really, I just brought a division, background and say, hey, I want to bring a Division I style program to a Canadian University. I think it'll work. Now you fast forward. This is going into year 11. Last year was 10. And, you know, there's a COVID year that we didn't play, unfortunately. So 9, 10, 11, I don't know. But, you know, we had our best year last year. We finally broke through the Canada West semifinals, which got us to the championship and then got us to nationals and Ottawa.

well last year and and we didn't win either of those but we could have I thought we showed very well and you know on top of that we really sell the player development part Ryan here you know that you have to to be able to get players right and it leads into a bigger discussion but we're very fortunate here with the program that we've run we've had the four four of the last Canada West players of the year from Mount Royal University and three out of the four national players of the year have come from Mount Royal University. And so we've been able to track some good players. Again, what does a landscape look like in the future? We're figuring it out. But we're very, very proud of the program that we've built here. And, you know, safe to say, you know, we're a contender

in Canada West and we're recognized nationally now. We're pretty proud of that. Yeah, that's awesome. I recall being at your game three, which was an absolute thriller against what used to be the standard to measure against the Alberta Golden Bears and you guys beating them to get into the final against U of S. It was pretty exciting to see and I know how much work goes in behind the scenes. So a tip of the cap to you for what you built there. Give us some of the names of the guys that

you mentioned the four players of the year consecutively and where they've either gone on to or what they're still doing to help the program. Yeah. Well, we go back to kind of the first breakthrough. It came right out of COVID was Nolan Yuremkel. And Nolan Flames fans will probably have a bit, maybe a bit of a recollection. He had a stint.

He played all his junior hockey in Tri-City in the WHL, was a captain there. At the end of his junior career, spent a little time at the time with Stockton in the American League, and then took the school option, came to MRU the following year. So he was kind of the first. And then we had Riley Sawchuck. Riley Sawchuk was a top-scoring 20-year-old in the W.H. with the Oil Kings, Evanton Oil Kings is last year, was just dynamite. I mean, he could just tell he was a player and was dynamite for us.

I think it was his second or third year, really blew up. And he signed an HL contract with Grand Rapids and the Red Wings organization, played in Finland and in their Liga last year. And, you know, I had a beer with him this summer and caught up and a great guy. And he's actually in Russia right now. he's trying to KHL for a year. Wow. So he's doing really well.

We had Connor Bouchard, who I'm very grateful that with all this turmoil, Connor's still in our program. He's going into his fourth year. And, I mean, he, in perspective, he had maybe the biggest year of everybody. When he won player in the year a couple of years ago, he had 50 points in 28 games. And ironically, that hadn't been done since the year 2000. One of the guys that did it in 2000 with the Golden Bear,

ours was Chris Nolblok. There you go. So a little word association, name association, but it's exceptional player. Excited for his future, excited that he's back. He's a leader in our program. He's one of the best players in the country, certainly in Canada West. And he's a great representative of our program and the importance and the value of what we're doing at Mount Royal and in Canada West and New Sport.

He's just embraced this experience. And then lastly, last year, breakthrough huge season by Clay Hanna's defenseman. He had previously played his junior with the Portland Winterhawks, originally signed, I believe it was a two-way HL East Coast City contract with the Penguins organization, took the school option at the Christmas time. He was a little banged up. It didn't really work out.

Wanted to use that. The school option came to us and did, you know, basically a year and a half. And then in his third year, led the league in scoring as a defenseman. Second in the country in scoring, had some offers and ended up going to the Olfenskin League in Sweden this year, a place called Kalmar. And he's in their training camp right now. And I know, yeah, I think he had an offer as well from the from the Dell in Germany. And, you know, exceptional player. And, you know, and again, for some of these guys, you know, Nolan played.

played in Germany last year in the Deltu. He's in England right now. First week in the EIHL gets player of the week. We got guys all over the place, and it's fun. It's fun to track them, you know, and they're all still chasing it. Yeah. No, it's great. And before we get into the sort of the topic of the day, you know, it kind of CIS-U-sports,

it always felt like you're getting these guys that took the major route. And unfortunately, for whatever reason, well, they're just not pursuing pro hockey anymore. And I feel like that mentality has changed big time. maybe it's the proximity to your program and you've seen some of the other great programs in Canada West, but you're seeing a lot of guys coming out of U-Sports and pursuing another chapter of their playing career for money in great leagues. And I don't know that it always felt that way to me. Maybe I'm off, though. Yeah, you know what, Ryan, I think that's fair.

I think that's a fair statement. And, you know, like I'll tell you from my perspective here, any player that I've talked to in, again, the 11 years I've been here in the recruiting process, if you don't have a desire to use this to move up into professional hockey, we didn't want you. Like, we ran this and have run this like a D1 program. We've got strength conditioning coaches. We have nutritionists. We have periodized plans. We have off-season conditioning plans.

We've got a high-performance training varsity room for a student-athletes. We've got mental skills people. You know, you name it. We have more resources here at Mount Royal than I ever had. at the Midgey State University or Duluth, right? So it's like, but you've got to be motivated and you got to see that this is a stepping stone. And I've always said university hockey in the grand scheme of things should be the bridge

between junior and pro, right? The ages match to your development piece, socially, physically, you know, mentally. University hockey is that bridge. And I think now that the NCAA is more involved, you're hearing more of that. But that's how we always sold it, right? There is this perception of, oh, that's where you go to die, the end of your career. No way. And, you know, like, I picked up on that with Alberta.

You know, like we played U of A. It's like their players are going Europe all the time, right? And it's like our league has gotten better in my 10 years here. Like, I don't know if Canada West has ever been better than it's been the last five years. Deep, deep and talented and well-coached. It's been exceptional hockey. Well, and then you add in, you know, the, the wrinkle that the whole hockey world's watching and trying to figure out of the last 12 months or so, and it was rumors of major junior players being eligible for NCAA. And then the fallout of it once it became a thing.

You saw commitments a few years out. Now finally, we're seeing major junior players even leaving well before their times up of their junior careers to jump at the opportunity to play NCAA. How has it affected your recruiting process? and how much uncertainty was there over the last year or so when you are trying to bring in players and they're saying, well, hang on now. There might be a door open that wasn't an option for me just a year ago. Yeah, no, exactly right.

And we, you know, generally our recruiting, and I say our returns to like counterwest and youth sport generally, you do stuff during the year, right? You're talking to. You'd love to get commitments throughout the season, but a lot of stuff happens kind of after our season. It is a late recruiting process, you know, with regards to, for us here in Western Canada, the WHL, they kind of control when and who we can talk to from their league. Basically, basically they're graduating 20-year-old players and we were only allowed to talk to them in little pockets in their last year.

Like, they controlled all that. So, you know, the recruiting timelines haven't changed much, Ryan, for us. in U-Sport, it's just the demographics have really changed. And I think I'm just throwing loose numbers out there that we track this stuff pretty closely. But on any given year, there's 66 graduating players from the WHL. It makes sense, right? Three each 22 teams.

Sure. You know, so approximately you start with that. There's some European guys in there that are going back to Europe. There might be a couple of guys get entry-level contracts. So that, you know, that number gets maybe 60, 50s. 55, then, you know, then it gets down to there's always a handful of guys that debate while school or minor pro. Am I into school or do want to go minor pro? Those guys usually end up in East Coast League.

Then you're getting down into the 40s, maybe the high 30s in terms of players left. Those are generally the guys that have filled our rosters in Newport. And for a little perspective, when the rule changed in November, you know, and then looking at it now, there's only a handful of. of those guys at all coming to use for it this fall. I think like 60 to 70% of those kids are all committed to NCAA schools this fall. Wow. Yeah. That's a big difference.

Now, I've made this point a few times, and I think it's an important one. They aren't creating new jobs in the NCAA. And so players that would have been participating, you know, in an NCAA roster might not be on one anymore. And guys that were going to go junior A, two. to NCAA, well, their job might just be taken from a guy that came from major. So, you know, there isn't this exodus of players so much. It's just those 60 players you're noting.

It's a lot of those guys that you kind of have to just change your recruiting. It's not like there's less players to look at. It's just a different pot, isn't it? Yeah. And I told people, I think I told you earlier in Ryan when we're just shooting the breeze over at the rank. But the big concern for me would be if all of a sudden we hear in the NCAA, that 10 new universities are starting D1 hockey this year. Right.

Right? Because then it's like, okay, now it's starting to get thin, right? That player pool starts to get thin. I kind of look at it right now. It's like a shuffling of the deck, right? Because, okay, well, what's happening? Again, the NCAA came in. A lot of the mid-majors scooped up all the 20-year-olds right away.

Now the big boys, you know, the big boys are starting to grab those younger guys. That's generally always been the pattern. You know, like you've seen all this in the USHL play out year for the last decade, right? Sure. Same thing's happening up here. So you're right. There's an influx of Canadian kids, CHL kids going to NCAA schools. But the players that have been playing in the NCAA that might be getting pushed out or pushed down, like we are probably going to have access to that.

We have the transfer this year from North Dakota, right? Um, you know, and so. And then in the CHL, we're probably going to be taking less kids directly from the CHL. But I think there's with the CHL maybe bringing in more international, more American kids I'm seeing, especially out here in the WHL. Sure. It might be harder for some of the depth players traditionally in the WHL to hang on to their jobs. Where are they going to be as 19 and 20 year olds?

Well, they're probably going to be in junior A hockey. Yeah. So they might, instead of saying, okay. they're coming from the WHL, it might just be saying, okay, they're coming from the CHL. But those are the guys, maybe some of them we'd have anyways, Ryan. Or with the NCAA taking less junior A kids, right? It's just shuffling. I look at it like shuffling the deck.

I still think there's possibility that we're going to get some pretty good players here. You know, indirectly, I think the transfer portal is going to play a big role for what we're going to do going forward as well. Yeah, it's fascinating. And no one has to know the answer or see the future, but you're doing your best to try to, you know, see it before. Maybe your counterparts do so you have an edge or at least not get stuck behind in terms of recruiting. How tough has it been for the players in a sense?

Because, you know, they've got agents or family representatives. And, you know, a player that you might be talking with, might be talking with a pro team. And that's a normal conversation. But they might also be now being shy with NCAA. And, you know, it's like, I don't know, like, going to the highest bidder is the right terminology, but, like, this could be complex and a lot of back and forth,

probably more than you're used to. It makes your headspin, man. I mean, I think it was just this morning, you know, our staff, I've got a good staff here and part-time guys, and they're into it, and they do a good job, you know, and staying on top of what's going on in the hockey world. And, I mean, it's chaos out there, right? So, you know, I get a text.

in there saying, oh, yeah, okay, well, major junior guy, apparently had committed to an NCAA school. Not sure if he's reporting or not reporting or having second thoughts. And then, you know, there is a communication either from him or from us. I don't know. And then, you know, the question was, like, what's going on? And the response from the player was, you know, what can you give me? What's your best offer? And it's funny, isn't it?

Like I start laughing. Like, this is the world we're in. Everything's transactional, right? Hey, what can you give me? How much money am I going to make? And it's like, it's university, man. Like, help get your education paid for us. Probably what we'll give for you.

It's an investment in your future, right? And if you're, you know, I think if you can come out of university in and not have debt or student loans, like the majority of students at the university, like you're in pretty good shape to start off your professional life, right? Yeah. That's the point. And it's just amazing. So back to, okay, talking about the players.

Like, like, it was really interesting last year because we were having guys reached out to by NCAA schools, right? And agents are representing our players. Well, they're in the middle. So they're talking to NCAA schools, trying to find opportunities for the guys who are on my team, right? And it's just like, it was really hard. There's guys, you know, then you've probably seen a little bit of it.

I think there's going to be close to 15 guys from Canada West. We're a 19 conference. Wow. I think there's going to be close to 15 guys that played in our conference last year that are going to be on rosters of NCAA programs this fall. Fast. Yeah. You know, and so you have that mentality, again, from the kids' perspective of,

especially in this generation. Well, where's he going? Where's he going? Should I be doing that? Am I missing out, right? Like that FOMO thing, fear of missing out? Like, they should start doing studies up here

with our junior hockey players because it's like, it's rampant. Am I missing out on something? Like everybody's going. That means our league's not going to be very good. Our team's not going to be very good. He's going over there. Should I go over there?

What should I do? You know, and it's just, I do see a lot of poor decisions being made in terms of not having a process, right? And I think this year, Ryan, is transactionally in terms of players going here, coming back, going there, coming back to junior, going to U-sport, going to the NCAA, going to the minor pro. I think it's going to be nuts this fall. Yeah. And you know what? It's a new universe. So people are going to figure out what works and what doesn't.

And there are options that are in front of players that haven't been before. And generally speaking, I think it's great for players to have office. options. You know, we sort of seen it almost like a system that you can't break out of. If you sign a contract when you're 14, you might make a couple hundred bucks a month. And then you got one year to try to make it as a pro or your scholarship evaporates. And then, oh, well, you're 19. You're not allowed to go to the A. And, you know, it's been very restrictive on players. And all of a sudden, they've got a plethora of options in front of them.

I would understand the uncertainty. But the flip side is, do these players now have the wherewithal to persevere? and get through maybe a tough interaction with a coach or the first disappointment of maybe not, you know, being a healthy scratch their first week of the university season. Or is it going to be the agent's call? Like, we'll move them to the other league. Like I asked Luke Strand about this, Mankato.

And I know you guys are both sort of more of the old school where the world you grew up in. If you had a problem with the coach, you better sort it out because that's where you were playing. But all these options sound great, but it also can lead to the easy way out a lot for players, I'd suggest. It's a great point, Ryan. Well said.

I mean, I think just from a, you know, I hate to say a traditional coach, I mean, that's what coaching is at the university level, right? Like you bring them in and, you know, for Luke, you know, I've known Luke for a long time. Great guy, great coach, right? There's a lot of guys that I'd still talk to in the NCAA, and they're struggling with this a little bit from the standpoint of it's just becoming like minor pro hockey. I had one NCAA coach sit there and say, geez, I'm like, you're bringing in a lot of guys. And he was just like, I just got to look at it now, but this isn't your traditional university experience.

We've got 26 free agents. Like any given year, you have no idea who's going in the portal, who might be leaving at Christmas time, who's coming. He's just like, I want to win, and I'm just treating it like I got 26 free agents every year. I don't know if that's good. And you know, Ryan, you're right. Like, I've used the term soft landing. Like, the old saying, like, be where your boots are and earn it. No one's being told that anymore.

Well, and if you are, you hope that the person he has mature enough to say, you know what, there's some wisdom in that versus here's the agent calling. We're going to the other route. Hey, I appreciate your perspective on this, Bert. Wish you all the best in the upcoming season. how much do the fellows look forward to that Crowchow Classic that you guys and the Dinos have? I know it's become a real flagship event for you sports across the country, not just for hockey. And what is it meant for your program, Canada West and your sports hockey?

Well, honestly, I wish it was on TV, Ryan. It should be, yeah. And again, not going too far down that rabbit hole, but that's as good of atmosphere as anybody's going to ever experience in the NTCHA. Yeah. Right. You can go to the Inglestead Arena in North Dakota. You can go to Marriucci in Minnesota. You can go to the Cole Center in Wisconsin. There's going to be 10, 11, 12,000 people there. And their student sections are fun, right? In the center ice, you got the band playing. Yeah. That Saddle dome game, you know, there's 13,000 people in there. There's 6,000 dino fans. There's 6,000 Cougar student. And these are student bodies, faculty. And they let loose, man. Like, like,

Like picture for the NCAA fans, picture the Engelstead Arena, but three quarters of the building are actual students. Yeah. Right. That's what the Saddle dome environment is. I've been in college hockey for 25 years. That Saddle dome game is an electric, one of the, if not the best environment for college sports that I've ever been a part of. It is amazing. I go home at night and my ears are ringing, right?

we're grateful for the Flames Foundation and the Flames people for giving us that opportunity for our men's and women's program and for anybody out there listening. If you want to have fun and just a charged up crazy environment, you know, slip on out for that one. It's for a good cost, too. Yeah, it's one of those things that's now on the sports calendar for me in this city. You've got all these great things. You've got stampede. It's like, you know, you've got the Labor Day Classic for the stamps and oh, well, Calvary's playing forge. That's a big one.

And there's this and that and all these different things. but it's there now. It's like one of those like you're looking for fun. This is the thing to do. And it's great to shed a lot more attention on your league, which has got such high quality players and deserves more attention than it normally gets. Thanks for your time. Best elect this season.

We'll see you around the rink. Appreciate it, Ryan. Take care. Buddies, you know what, Barnburner is a presentation of Bet365 best gaming partner in the whole wide world. Get that app in your phone. If you haven't got an account yet, set it up. Use the Code Nation when you sign up.

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Get some good bont on your grill. No regrets. 28 crowfoot circle in the Northwest. And we're back with more Barnburner. Our final guest today is the head coach, the GM, the president of the Penticton vs, Fred Harbenson, who has had a busy year. Fred, thanks for joining us.

If we had chatted six months ago, you'd be the head coach of a BCHL club. it will be a WHL league you play in this year. How chaotic is the last year been? Never mind the eligibility, just going from one league to another. Yeah, probably, like you said, since November, it's been a whirlwind would be an understatement probably. And, you know, me and Graham Fraser, our owner,

have kind of talked about it at plenty of times, just that, you know, in a lot of these kind of situations, you'd probably have a couple of years to do what we've done to get ready. and we did it kind of in four or five months. So it's exciting times here, but it was wild, especially as we were still playing last year and with all the changes going on. But, you know, you kind of adapt or die, right?

So we found a way to adapt and we made a decision to move to this new league, great league, and we're excited about it. Yeah, fair enough. And again, your job for the prior decade plus was to help prepare. junior hockey players for college, you could argue that hasn't changed at all, but I'm sure there's lots of work that's changed. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's obviously a little different animal now. Like we, you know, again, you know, a lot of people have their different opinions of what's going

on right now. And, you know, my, I think my job for the last 18 years here in Penticton probably wasn't even really to develop players for college. It was just developing young men to be, you know, good, good citizens, good hockey players, whatever that path was going to be, right? And so, you know, in the Western Hockey, it's a longstanding tradition of developing players for professional hockey. And I don't think anything's going to change with that. They're now the fact that a player can still utilize going to college before maybe that step. I mean, that's going to happen. And but our mandate here is not going to change.

Like, it's going to be the same that, you know, I, I've got players that are going to be 16 to 20 years old, very impressionable parts of their time in their life. You know, their parents are handing them over to us, sort of speak, and it's our job to make sure that we're instilling the right discipline and morals and accountability and not just in hockey, but in their everyday parts of their life. And that's going to continue with us going to Western League.

Tell us a bit about the program. You guys are a BCHL powerhouse. That league evolved and separated away from hockey Canada. and now into the WHL, but, you know, it's the same pain on the walls. It's a lot of the same staff. And to your point, a lot of the same ideals and virtues that you're carrying forward. Yeah, like when I came here in 07,08, like timing was really good. Like, you know, I think in anything in life, your timing's really critical.

And so it had been three years prior. There was an ownership group that bought the team, brought back the V's name. And it had changed a couple times with the Knights and the 80s and Panthers. and um but you know anybody that's been around knows that there's a lot of history and tradition that goes to this program that goes back to being a senior team in the 50s that won the world championship in 55 and then and then from 61 on till last year we're in the bc hockey league and as you said a powerhouse some big names in paul korea you know brennan morrison brett hall and the list goes on and on and on so um when i got here in 0708 was it was kind of we were in the

final year playing in the old Memorial Arena. The new building that we have today that's state of the art was just getting in the process of getting built. And, you know, we won a championship my first year in 0708, which they hadn't won since 86. So it was kind of revitalized, you know, it was kind of an exciting time. And then the next year you move into the new building. And you still had some ups and downs those first few years. And it was probably, I always say kind of 2011-12, and we had Troy Stetcher, my... Mikey Riley, some of these other guys, and we had this create, you know, an insane lineup of, you know, where we broke all these records. From that point on, I think our program really took off.

And it kind of turned into what it was today. And, you know, where we were moving, you know, basically 100% of our lineup was going on to college. We were getting a lot of NHL drop picks, big attendance, you know, 3,000 fans a game. You know, kind of everything was kind of magnified. over the last handful of years. And then all of a sudden, last season, in November, this big huge rule change. And to really look back, you know, I was in college,

I was coaching at St. Cloud State before I came here. And 20-some years ago, they were talking about, you know, the potential that, you know, the CHL players would get eligibility way back then. And it just never happened. And then bang, one November day, it happens. And now we're staring at a situation where, as I just kind of, I laid out, these big-time players were in Penticton well before I got here. And now we're saying, I'm looking at our owner at Graham Fraser and saying, like,

you know, I'm a pretty good recruiter, but my, you know, what I was selling is, is, is gone now. You know, we were, we were getting the top players that wanted to go the college route. Now there's no reason for them to come this way, because they can still get there going through the CHL. So what are we going to do? And we thought, well, let's join. Let's try to see if we can join the CHO. Yeah, it's incredible, you know, how dramatic that changes to the junior A recruiter because, you know, you're selling, keep your eligibility and play a great level of hockey.

And now the one league that, you know, arguably is the best developmental league in the world and the CHS says, oh, we can do that too. So I imagine that you noted it had something to do with the decision. And how has the transition been so far? You obviously would have had rostered players that had their WHL rights held elsewhere. You've had an expansion draft, a real draft. and now you've got to recruit for the first year of a junior league, but not the one you read last year. Yeah, no, it's, it was interesting because like I said,

as we were playing last year, everything was starting to leak out. And, you know, you being in the media, probably no better than anybody, like, there was more being said that, like, in one, at the same time of trying to get in the Western League, we had to change our lease with the city if it was going to happen. It wouldn't, our BCHL lease wouldn't work.

So in some brass, we're telling the city that we're further ahead with the Western League to try to get our lease. And at times we're trying to tell the Western League, we're probably further ahead with the city to try to get in the league. And so there was a lot of stressful days and nights and we're trying to put it all together. And then as things are leaking out, even maybe ahead of where things really were, you had to worry about what our players were thinking because some of them from Ontario and whatnot knew that, well, if that means I'm not going to be back here next year. And to their players credit, they did an outstanding job of kind of staying in the moment and making sure that it didn't affect too much. And there were some guys, like you said, that had Western League rights with other teams. And we were able to acquire every single one except for one with Max Heise. The PA just wouldn't, you know, wouldn't work with us and understandably why, you know, he's a heck of a player.

And so he's going to be going to playing in PA this year. some of the other guys. We were able to list a couple guys that weren't on teams' lists. And when it started leaking out, you know, teams were trying to list our guys. And we had, the one area that we were protected is we had put a stipulation that our players wouldn't be allowed to be

listed during a certain time. So we kind of got covered there. The expansion process was interesting to say the least. You know, they, again, I, you know, very happy to be in the league and very appreciative of

all the members and we want to be great members. But the truth of matter is I don't think the expansion process was that favorable for us. And probably part of that was, you know, maybe what we've done in the past hurt us, you know, like they weren't going to make it too easy on us. And that being said, I think we've done a good job of managing through it, getting some good player. We've had to make some, you know, traded some picks away to be very competitive. I think we're going to be very competitive of this year, which I think was important. You know, you know, Penticton well, and what they're used to here isn't going to be what they get, but we couldn't go from, you know, winning 40 some games a year to, you know,

maybe five wins this year or something. So I think we're going to be, you know, somewhere, you know, like I said, maybe not in the middle, but we're going to be in a situation where we're being very competitive. We're going to be players are very excited about wanting to come and play in Penticton, and that'll go a long ways. So now as a GM and head coach of a major junior team, when you draft a player, and let's say they show up for their 16-year-old year, I think it would probably be a little naive to just think, oh, well, this guy's going to be here until he's 20.

And if you're doing a real good job of developing, it might be in the NHL at 19. You never know. Right. But, I mean, how do you now view your window of a star player in major junior because of the different options of their face? Well, you nailed it. For me, maybe I don't have to change my mindset that much because when I was in the BC hockey league, there was a certain way that players would filter through our system, right?

Through our program. And, you know, I think the one thing here now is, is, you're right. Like, if we do a good job and make it, you know, I think one of the things we've done a really good job over the years is people talk about the winning, but I think we've done a good job of merriaging the personal development of the player along with winning. And we've got a lot of tools. And that goes back to our owner again, given me to the. the ability to have a big staff.

So we've always had, you know, when you talk about development pieces, we've always had, you know, a full-time strength coach. You know, we've got, you know, a big medical staff. We've got a, you know, a power skating coach. We've got a skills coach. Like, we put a lot of time and effort into the personal development of a player. So what we're hoping is that if we continue to do a good job, getting players drafted and we do a good job of developing them,

that it has to be something pretty strong. special for them to leave here to, you know, to go off the college. It better be, you know, and it's hard when you're going against the, the Michigan's or the Michigan states or the North Dakota because the resources they have. But at the same time, if you, if you put a player in a position where, you know, for instance, there's, you know, boomer to Mars, Brooks to Mars, he's an 09 player with us. I just found out yesterday that he's committing the University of North Dakota. Now, in my mind, you know, we're going to have him hopefully for three years. We're in the past, you would have said probably four.

Now, if he does come back the fourth year, then great. If not, if it's only three, then the way the new scholarship, you know, the Western Hockey League development model is, is that, you know, now we would be off the hook for paying his development money. And so the scholarship money. So, you know, then you save money there. I mean, the bottom line is just being prepared. Like, you don't want to get caught with your pants down, sort of speak, where,

and no matter what you do, you're always going to have some unseen circumstances that come out. Like, one of the things I'll point to, like, the people that want to go on Twitter and say, oh, the CHL is going to be in big trouble. They're dead. Like, I coached in college when hardly any players ever left early. Yeah. They, you know, one in a million, one in a hundred would leave before their fourth year. And then all of a sudden that changed.

Well, it didn't kill college hockey. They evolved and they found a way to change. It's the same right now. We're still going to get the players. The best players in the world now are going to want to still come to the CHL. And I would argue that the net gain is better right now. Like, the player I just used an example of Brooks to Mars, he would have never came to the Western Hockey League.

He's a kid that wanted to probably go college. So now he would have went to the U.S. USHL or maybe Penticton as a BCHL team if the rules didn't change. And he would have never came. Now that kid's coming to the league. Now if we do a good job and maybe he gets drafted and signs, he never ends up at North Dakota. I don't know.

But that player is in the league now. So instead of focusing on these few, you know, I think the Western League probably lost 12 really high-end players, but how many have they gained this year that were, would have been earmarked for college? That's the question. Yeah, that's a good point because you're right.

Like Gavin McKenna's a big name. Caden Lidstrom was drafted fourth overall. Verhoff is a guy that's going to go very high next year draft. And that's all high profile. But what Major Junior used to have to compete with were these other leagues, like where you were working in the BC League and the USHL, that would allow a player to keep its eligibility for college. So I think it's a sound argument to say that if you look at the 16 to 18-year-old group,

the league's better. Now, the 1920s is a different story. But I mean, you're a developmental league and the guys that are still playing junior at that age. There's a lot of the biggest stars in the game are that group. For sure. And I think we're like the ones that heard are the McKinna's and Bearhop because on top of it, because of the, you know,

they haven't been drafted yet. So now they're getting drafted as college players instead of a medicine hat tiger or Victoria of Royal. Sure. And there's a lot of money that goes involved in that too, right? When as far as development money. So there, there's a piece of the puzzle there that hurts. But again, those are a unicorn.

Like Gavin McKinness still played three years in the Western Hockey League. It's a late birthday, right? He's a late birthday. So that happens once in a while. Now, you know, for instance, with Veerhoff, like those players that leave before they're, you know, that elevate their schooling and get their graduation date early. I mean, at North Dakota, you know who the last person wants to do it? Jonathan Cates.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a long time ago. So this is not, you know, you know, and I would take, let's say that rule changed a year or two ago. Celebrini probably would have played in the Western Occulate. That's fair. Guy that wasn't in the league. Owen Powers wouldn't have played in the USHL.

He would have played in the OHL. Like you could start going back. So moving forward again, everybody's focusing on these couple guys that are leaving. And sure, it's, it's something that we're going to have to change the way we do, do business or prepare maybe, you know, maybe you're going to be careful. Like when I was in Pentict, then I wasn't focusing three years down the road with my roster. It was one to two years, you know, kind of two years, windows,

and then you kind of go from there. Maybe there's going to have to be a little bit of that, you know, moving forward. And it sounds like college games moved to that already. You know, we'll take a guy for a year. Whereas, as you noted, when you started coaching, it was you get four with everyone and maybe five. Well, it's just a changing landscape. Absolutely. And one of the big things for that is, you know, is that portal.

The reason they've had to go, hey, we'll take someone for one or two is because the portal changes things dramatically, change things dramatically for them, right? So again, evolve with it, trying to find a way to work with it. You know, and for us, I guess, again, another advantage for us here in Penticton is, you know, our number one mandate, like I said, is going to be to develop good people. And the next thing is our goal now is to try to get them ready for pro hockey. Our goal isn't going to be trying to get them ready for call. Now, if we don't get them to pro hockey right away,

then at least now there's an opportunity for them to go to the NCAA. Our fans here aren't going to freak out if all of a sudden a player leaves after three years to the University of North Dakota because it's been going on since 1961. Like they're used to that, right? So we don't have to sell that as part of the new change where maybe some of the other programs have to. I do. Well, we've got you. want to ask you about a Flames prospect coming off a really good year.

And a guy, I believe you watched three seasons ago, Idaer Sunnev, who was at UMass last year and scored a ton of goals, scored a ton of goals for you. And the flames are hoping he'll score a ton of goals, at least for their American League affiliate, the Wranglers this year. What was, because I recall that sort of being like late COVID and, you know, it was a weird spot for players trying to find places to play for in certain instances. How did you get IDAR? What was he like?

And what do you expect or project him to do moving forward into the pro ranks? Yeah, that one was a real, like, we've had. had some different situations go on here. That was an odd one because what happened was we were, yeah, kind of coming off COVID there. And in Ontario, they were still having some issues where, you know, he was at St. Andrews College and they were having some issues about where, you know, some of the restrictions that were going on.

This is like the set, you know, the 21, 22 season, right? So, so then we get a, like, we've had a lot of San Andrews. Andrews player. So we get a call from David Manning saying, like, we're going to have to go into the US and do some training down there. This player here doesn't have a visa for the US. Can he come and skate with you guys? And Steve Colley, as, you know, Steve, like, he's worked for me for years. And when I brought his Sunnius name up to Steve, he's their best player. He goes, like, and I'm like, Steve, don't get excited. Like, there's no way we're going to be able to get the, you know, he's a Russian player. Like, we're not going to be able to get him eligible for junior eight. It's just not

going to happen. So we get him out. here to practice with us and then we start digging into some different things and seeing how if there's a way to make it happen long story short somehow we got we were able to get him you know Canadian visa we got there was a lengthy process you know his mom had to come over here move over here and we were able to get him eligible for the second half of the season that year and um I would think I think it was like three weeks after we got him eligible. than the war broke out so that was a real like I think there's no chance if it you know if that you know so then the war broke out it put him in a it was a kind of an odd situation that was going on and and to idar's credit that first year like we I don't think he knew where his own end was and you know like and so we were had to design drills where we were spray painting different quadrants in the ice of where he needed to be but you could always see that he had this offensive gift and you could also see that he was wanted to learn. He was in here wanting to do extra video. He very serious. I think I've talked to you

in the past that, you know, every morning to show up here, he'd be doing a certain routine that you were thinking you'd be getting ready for a game seven, you know, and then we're getting ready for a regular practice. As that season went on, had a pretty good, you know, pretty good finish. We get in the playoffs and he broke his finger in the second round and we lost him for the rest of the playoffs, but he had a pretty, pretty, you know, successful start. I predicted, I said, that kid, you can tell that I just knew, you could just see that he was, the light bulb was going off. And the next year when he came in, it was like, he just took off. Like, he scored 45 goals for us. Our power play was lethal. You had Bradley Nadeau on one flank, him on the other.

You know, Bradley scored 32 goals, I think, in the HL last year. year is a 19 year old. So, you know, they, they, they didn't play on the same line together, but power play wise, it was lethal. But he became a very good two-way player. And I'll be honest, in the finals, like, so we, we won the championship his first year. He was out, but then the second year, we went back to back. And he was one of our best players in the finals.

Like, he went from a guy that you were worried about with your defending a lead to the point where he's blocking shots in the final. And, you know, he just wants to be a hockey player. so bad he'll do whatever it takes to get there that's great stuff appreciate it uh best of luck in your first year in the western league i know uh this is exciting and i've heard from people around the hockey that sounds like you know a pretty good job this isn't going to be a necessarily a traditional expansion season for you so all the best will be following and can't wait to see a pass through the saddle lo i appreciate it and thanks for having you on big thank you to luke strand uh bert gilling

as well as Fred Harbenson, changing a landscape for developing junior hockey players, collegiate players, crazy times. No one knows exactly what is going to happen, but we hope this show gave you some insights on what these different levels of hockey, players have options for, and that coaches are operating in what they're seeing, what's happening here in the first year of a seismic shift in how hockey players are reaching their ways to the professional ranks. Thanks for watching. See you, buddies.