You may not exactly need sunglasses inside The Q Centre but next season does look bright for the Victoria Grizzlies.
The Grizzlies will add a player ranked for the 2024 NHL draft to a solid-looking core returning group for the 2024-25 B.C. Hockey League season.
Six-foot-two Grizzlies recruit Drew Waterfield, coming next season from Shattuck St. Mary’s Academy in Minnesota, is ranked by Central Scouting as the No. 207 North American skater for this year’s NHL draft.
“He is a big, 200-foot forward of the kind we recruit here,” said Grizzlies GM and head coach Rylan Ferster.
“That is who we are.”
Waterfield will join a large-framed forward corps of returning forwards that includes Jacksenn Hungle, Reegan Hiscock and BCHL rookie-of-the-year Chase Pirtle. All are committed to NCAA Div. 1 teams but not until 2025-26, Hungle to Canisius, Hiscock to Northeastern and Pirtle to Cornell.
Other key returnees include goaltender Oliver Auyeung-Ashton, defenceman Richard Baran and forward Tobias Pitka, all NCAA Div. 1 committed but also not until the following season, with Auyeung-Ashton to Colgate and Slovak-imports Baran to Arizona State and Pitka to Boston College. Pitka is currently in Finland playing for his home country at the U-18 world hockey championship.
The Grizzlies placed fourth in the Coastal Conference but Ferster said that was deceptive because the team was without Auyeung-Ashton in goal and top defenceman and NCAA Dartmouth-committed Tim Busconi for large segments of the season due to injury.
“We had a really good team,” said Ferster.
The Grizzlies made it to the second round of the playoffs before falling in six games to the BCHL regular-season champion Surrey Eagles.
“We took them to six games and outside of Game 6 [the only blowout], it was anybody’s series. We want to take another step next season. We want to be one of those upper-echelon teams,” said Ferster.
He has done it before in guiding the West Kelowna Warriors to the BCHL and RBC Cup national Junior A championships in 2015-16 and the Salmon Arm Silverbacks, with NHL first-round draft picks Travis Zajac and Chris Chucko, to the 2003-04 BCHL final before losing to the Nanaimo Clippers.
“We have a good group of core guys back,” said Ferster, who during his first stint with the Grizzlies (then known as the Salsa) in the mid-late 2000s, coached future Dallas Stars captain and Olympic gold-medallist Jamie Benn, NHLer-to-be Jordie Benn and Stanley Cup-champion Tyler Bozak.
“A lot of them want to start tomorrow. But we will let this digest. Culture is an over-used term when it comes to teams. I think foundation is maybe a better word. I like that and the environment we have built here.”
The top-seed Eagles advanced to play the defending Coastal Conference-champion and third-seed Alberni Valley Bulldogs in the best-of-seven conference final beginning Saturday in South Surrey.
ICE CHIPS: Pirtle makes it two straight BCHL rookie of the year winners for the Grizzlies as the Far Hills, New Jersey, product follows last year’s winner, Auyeung-Ashton. Pirtle had 52 points in 54 regular season games and another 12 points in 11 playoff games… . Ferster said he is looking forward to the new affiliation between the Tier I junior BCHL and the Tier II junior Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League. Both leagues have bolted Hockey Canada and B.C. Hockey to operate independently. “It will be good to have our APs [affiliated players] really close,” said Ferster.
