ESTEVAN - A season that the Estevan Bruins and their supporters have been waiting for has finally arrived.
The puck will drop on the 2021-22 Bruins season on Friday night when the Bruins host the Yorkton Terriers at Affinity Place, starting at 7:30 p.m. Expectations are sky-high for the Bruins this year, but that’s a given since the club will be the host team for the Centennial Cup national Junior A hockey championship, sponsored by Tim Hortons.
Head coach and general manager Jason Tatarnic said he is pleased with the progress the team has shown since they gathered for training camp on Aug. 20. They played four preseason games, dropping the first two to the Weyburn Red Wings before responding with wins over the Yorkton Terriers and Weyburn.
“It’s been a process, not having played in a year for some of our players. It’s a new group. It takes time to get used to each other. We’re just going to go along, and we know it’s going to be a process,” Tatarnic told the Mercury.
Championships aren’t won in September, and the focus has been trying to find chemistry among players.
“Chemistry’s a tricky thing. You can think you have it right away, and that can fade after a couple of weeks,” said Tatarnic. “It’s basically building a team chemistry as far as how we do things. These are our systems, this is what we want to accomplish in games and this is how we practise. That chemistry is coming along nicely, and our goal is to get ready for September 24.”
He’s not worried about the two early losses to Weyburn. The focus is on what players are doing well.
“We put quite a bit of shots on both games. We outshot Weyburn by a big margin and had some glorious scoring chances that we didn’t capitalize on. If we weren’t creating offence, then you might have some concerns. We created some offence in those games, but didn’t have any puck luck. Then we went up to Yorkton and we had tonnes of puck luck and we scored eight goals.”
It’s important to be patient with the players and recognize they will score eventually.
Forward Mark Rumsey was a standout during preseason games with seven goals, and the Bruins were happy with other players. Third-year Bruin Griffin Asham-Moroz has taken big strides. Another third-year forward, Cody Davis, is always working hard. Olivier Pouliot is a dynamic forward.
Veteran defencemen Nolan Jones and Dayton Deics provide leadership and stability.
The club had 25 players on the roster as of Monday morning. They’ll have to make some roster decisions before the season opener. The most recent addition was bringing in defenceman Billy Sowa from the West Kelowna Warriors.
Tatarnic said the players and coaches have talked about the upcoming season and the expectations they’ll be facing, and right now the focus is to improve as much as they can early.
“As a team, we’ve set some goals, and our first goal is to make the playoffs. That’s it. Then once we get into the playoffs, our goal is to win a championship. We’ll just worry about things as they come. So it’s a process. We’ll take it slowly. We’re not going forward or ahead to the national championship tournament, because that’s not until May. This is September, and we have to worry about this month.”
Tatarnic has coached several teams to the national tournament. With the Woodstock Slammers of the Maritime Junior Hockey League, they reached the national tournament three times, making it to the final in 2012 in Humboldt. And he built the Chilliwack Chiefs team that won a national title as the host team in 2018.
“We’ve talked about what a great experience it is, and a memorable one,” said Tatarnic. “It is something they won’t forget throughout their life. Treat it like it’s a privilege to play in that tournament, and it’s a great opportunity for them.”
The club has not decided on a captain or alternate captains for this season.
Tatarnic hopes to see a great crowd for the home opener against Yorkton. They had just three home games last season, and they could only have 150 fans for those games.
The last time there was a regular season or postseason junior hockey game without crowd size restrictions in Estevan was March 11, 2020.
“If I had an opportunity to watch a live sporting event, I’d jump all over it. That’s just me, but if that’s something I really enjoyed, I would get out and watch it, and take advantage of it.”
You can find stories on the Bruins throughout the season in the Mercury and on our website, www.sasktoday.com.
