The sun did indeed rise on Tuesday and life goes on for the Prince George Cougars.
Tears were shed in the dressing room late into the night Monday at CN Centre as the cruel fate they suffered started to sink in.
Their season ended at the hands of the Portland Winterhawks, who beat the Cougars 2-1 five minutes into the second overtime period when ‘Hawks winger Josh Davies finished it with one shot in Game 6 of the WHL Western Conference final.
It’s called sudden-death for a reason. For the Cougars it’s like losing a cherished loved one.
There’s no replacing the family bond they’ve formed, on and off the ice, knowing that some of them will never be back to play hockey again. The three overagers - Hudson Thornton, Zac Funk and Chase Pauls – know with certainty they won’t be back and will have to say goodbye this week to their band of brothers.
“I owe everything to Prince George, this town, this community, this organization as a whole, they’ve treated me top-notch from the moment I came here and it’s sad that I can’t call myself a Prince George Cougar next year, it’s going to be a tough adjustment,” said Cougar captain Thornton, a first-team BC Division all-star and nominee for the WHL top defenceman award won Tuesday by Moose Jaw Warrior Denton Mateychuk.
“At the end of the day it’s obviously disappointing the way we finished, I’ve loved every second of being a Cougar and if I could play junior hockey for the rest of my life I would.”
Pauls, a big stay-at-home type of defenceman, joined the team at the trade deadline in January from the Lethbridge Hurricanes and knew then he was coming to a team capable of a deep playoff run that lived up to the hype and nearly got to the league final.
“I think we battled hard, we left it all out there and unfortunately we didn’t get the bounce on double-overtime and unfortunately our season is over for that,” said Pauls. “But I’m proud of these guys and honoured to be a teammate.”
For three rounds of intense playoff hockey the Cougars lived up to the hype as one of the top major junior hockey teams anywhere on this planet and gave local fans an unforgettable thrill ride that only leaves them hungry for more.
“It was a crazy environment here and if you had asked me at the start of the year if I’d be happy taking my career to the conference finals this year I would have taken it 10 times out of 10,” said Pauls. “Unfortunately we kind of laid a goose (egg) in a couple games in Portland and it sucks losing. Hopefully these guys come back next year with a bitter taste in their mouths and they go all the way and win it.”
The Cougars packed the stands with sellout crowds 6,000-strong at CN Centre for the eight home games they played in the playoffs. That’s 48,000 people through the turnstiles in a postseason that lasted six weeks. The quality of the team on display in 34 regular season games pushed the average attendance to 3,519, nearly 800 fans more per game ahead of last year.
That’s got to be reassuring for an ownership group that took the reins of the team 10 years ago and have taken their financial lumps over the years when on typical game nights at CN Centre the empty green seats outnumbered the occupied ones by a three-to-one one margin.
Mark Lamb, in his five years at the helm as head coach and general manager, has done his due diligence filling double-duty. Backed by a revamped scouting staff that made the right player choices, he pulled off trades that brought the likes of Funk, Pauls, Borya Valis, Oren Shtrom, Matteo Danis and the year before that, Chase Wheatcroft, all of whom blossomed into impact players without having to mortgage the team’s draft future. No other GM in the league acquired players who developed into 100-point-plus performers like forwards Funk and Wheatcroft, who had never come close to the century mark in previous seasons with their former teams.
The ownership allowed Lamb to hire a former NHL head coach, Jim Playfair, as his right-hand man in the bench and together with assistant coach Carter Rugby and goalie coach Taylor Dakers the Cougars set team records for most goals in a season and fewest goals allowed, while their special teams - power play and penalty killing were second-best overall in the WHL.
Almost lost in the shuffle was work athletic therapist Mitch Karapita put into keeping the Cougars healthy. Despite one of the most arduous travel schedules as the WHL’s most northerly outpost, the Cougars went through most of the season basically injury-free, with the exception of Koehn Ziemmer’ broken ankle in late -November that knocked him out of the lineup for almost four months. Let’s hope their avoidance of sickbay develops into a trend next season.
“You’ve got to get the right people around and build it the right way and it takes a lot of hard work and that’s where we’re at right now, that’s the foundation and how we’re going to do business,” said Lamb.
“We’ve got a good core, we’ve got good young guys, we’ve got draft picks, so the organization is heathy right now. I’m very proud of the guys, just very disappointed for them, more than anything. I’m disappointed for myself, not as much as for them, because I can move on from this, but there’s some players that will be leaving that dressing room and that’s the hard thing.”
The winningest Cougar team in 30 years was so talented, so competitive and so entertaining, they made it hard to believe most of them are still only teenagers. What is believable is that a handful of them are destined for professional hockey careers.
Some of them, namely Thornton, Funk, Riley Heidt, Koehn Zimmer, Ty Young - are already drafted and/or signed by pro teams for next season while others, like highly-touted, draft-eligible forwards Terik Parascak, Hunter Laing and Ondrej Becher - will learn their NHL futures at the draft in June.
Funk, who led the league with 67 goals and was second in the scoring race with 123 points, went undrafted but signed with the Washington Capitals in March, much like Wheatcroft did last year when he signed late in the season with the Dallas Stars.
“It’s going to be great,” said Funk. “I’m going to be happy where I am, that’s kind of the dream, to make the NHL and obviously play pro hockey and when I get there it will be a nice thing for my hockey career and I’m really happy the Cougs (made that trade).” said Funk.
Goalie Josh Ravensbergen, despite showing the calm and cool mannerisms of seasoned pro night after night in the crease, doesn’t turn 18 until November and is still a year away from being available for the NHL draft.
“He’s had one heckuva a season, he’s proved he can start and lead that way,” said Funk “It’s going to be awesome to watch what he can do, he’s going to be a great goalie and he’s going to make a lot of people happy in his career.
“It’s hard not to get emotional, these guys played their hearts out.”
Next season the Cougars’ prospects that practiced with the team and shadowed them during the playoff run will get their chance to shine as WHL rookies. With Thornton and Pauls gone, icetime will be available for the likes of defenceman Carson Carels, who did not look at all out of place as 15-year-old in his five-game audition with the Cats this season. There will be a spot for 2022 first-rounder Lee Shurgot, who played 20 regular season and one playoff game after he put up 20 goals and 50 points this season to help Saskatoon Blazers U-18s repeat as provincial champions.
“Prince George is in good hands for many years with the talent that’s coming in,” said Thornton
“The young core of this group, the guys returning next year, this is a huge experience for them and they kind of learned what it takes to get to this level and, ultimately, it would be nice for them to finish it off and go all the way.”
