It was a tough start to the new year for the Parkland Rangers.

The regional U18 AAA hockey team dropped a pair of games to the Winnipeg Bruins, 10-4 on Saturday, and 6-2 on Sunday.

Both games were in Swan River.

With the addition of Ukrainian-born center Havryil Simchuk, Rangers head coach Tyler Carefoot had hoped the team would have an increased energy level and new-found excitement.

“And the first period of the first game, I thought we performed really well. I liked our energy. I liked our pace. There were a lot of good things to like,” he said. “But when they have a team that deep, you almost have to have a pretty much perfect game. And our management was below average.”
Winnipeg scored five times in the opening period and added a pair in the second.

“It was one of those games that just got off the rails for us,” Carefoot said.

Carefoot felt Sunday’s score flattered the Bruins as he didn’t feel it was a 6-2 game.

The difference in the game was a stretch in the second period where the Bruins scored three times in a span of 1:06.

“One of the things we’re trying to focus on is trying to have better team defence. I thought in the first game, we were just too easy to play against. Overall, there was a lack of being good defenders,” Carefoot said. “That was something for the second game I thought we needed to do a better job of and just focus on going forward, having that mindset of just being really good defenders. And I thought we did a much better job of that in the second game.”

Carefoot added it was a much better effort overall in Sunday’s game. Things don’t get any easier for Parkland this weekend as they travel to Winnipeg for games against the Wild, Saturday and Sunday.

“We’re going through a tough stretch here. Somehow if we can weather this storm, maybe focus on the process instead of the results,” he said.

Simchuk, Carefoot said, adds some depth to the lineup. He had been practicing with the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Dauphin Kings prior to joining the Rangers and had an assist in each game against the Bruins.

He is on a line with Dru Mushumanski and Cash Clarkson.

In moving Mushumanski to the wing, Carefoot hopes he can focus on finding some holes.

“And Simchuk has the ability to move the puck around. He’s got that awareness. He’s a very high skilled player,” Carefoot added. “But he was out of shape. He wasn’t in game shape. He didn’t have the stamina. But that will come.”

Alex Senf’s goal 2:29 into overtime lifted the Dauphin Kings to a come-from-behind 6-5 win over the Winnipeg Blues, Saturday, salvaging a split for the local junior A hockey club.

The Blues had scored a 6-4 victory, Friday in Winnipeg, spurred by a three-goal outburst in a span of 3:05, early in the second period.

Kings head coach and general manager Doug Hedley said the Kings were a better team on Saturday.

“They got a point out of it, but I don’t think they deserved it. I thought we had so many chances in the second period,” he said.

Three power-play goals kept the Blues in the game and allowed them to take a 5-3 lead early in the third period. Both goals came on a five-on-three advantage.

“The fact that we got down 5-3 in the third period and found a way to come back and get two points out of it is huge for the guys’ confidence. I really think we have a good group in there,” Hedley said. “We’ve got size, we’ve got speed, we’ve got talent, we’ve got skill. We’ve just got to learn how to work and work smart.”

The Kings enter the week in third place with 41 points, two back of the Waywayseecappo Wolverines and one behind the OCN Blizzard. Dauphin is also one point ahead of the Swan Valley Stampeders.

Virden swept OCN in a pair of games over the weekend and sit in last place, but only 10 points behind the Wolverines.

Having the division so close will make for an exciting stretch drive.

“Especially right now. We’ve got some big games. We’ve got Swan. We’ve got OCN. We’ve got Wayway. So it’s all in our division now. It’s going to be playoff hockey from here on in,” Hedley said.

Teams will be looking to solidify their rosters with the Jan. 10 trading deadline.

Hedley said it would be great to find a top six forward to help the team offensively.

“Having said that, I really liked (Carter) Zalischuk tonight. He was outstanding. You know that kid is always going to give you hard work,” he said, adding the trio of Rylan Gibbs, Logan Walker and Ethan Williment was the best line on Friday. “They practiced all week that way,” Hedley said. “We’re starting to finally get those three guys that can come out there and get a big goal at the right time.”

Hedley tinkered with the power play, using defenceman Aidan Brook as a forward to plant himself in front of the net.

Most of the Kings moves, Hedley said, were made at the Dec. 1 deadline.

“But a puck moving right handed D-man would be great. A top three forward, left handed shot would be ideal,” he added.

Given how tight things are in the West Division, Hedley doesn’t see much movement from among the six teams.

The break allowed the Kings to bring back a healthy lineup, but goaltender Cole Sheffield left Saturday’s game after he was hit in the head in a collision at the side of the net. Hedley said he will be day-to-day.

Hedley planned to talk to Sheffield and fellow tender Marko Belak about the team carrying three goaltenders with the addition of Dmytro Kubritskyi.

The 20-year-old has been playing with the Ukraine national team against Canadian university squads in a series of exhibition contests and has shone in his outings.

Hedley said Kubritskyi has the capability to provide the kind of goaltending Carson Cherepak gave the Kings last season.

“We’re hoping Dmytro can come in here and really solidify (the goaltending),” he said, adding Sheffield and Belak’s numbers are almost identical. “We’ll see what happens,” Hedley said.

The Kings have just one game this week, traveling to Swan Valley on Wednesday to face the Stampeders.

Dauphin and District Community Foundation members Sherrie Volk, left, and Rita Dupley, right, were on hand when fellow board member Darren Eddie marked another milestone on the foundation’s thermometre, last week.

DDCF recently hit the $4.75 million mark.

The Parkland Rangers missed a chance to close the gap on a playoff spot with a pair of losses to the Eastman Selects over the weekend.

The Rangers couldn’t overcome a 3-0 first-period deficit, Saturday, dropping a 4-2 decision, before falling 4-3 on Sunday.

Parkland (6-17-3-0) now trails the eighth-place Selects by 10 points. Eastman (12-11-1-0) is one point ahead of Interlake (11-14-1-1) and seven up on Kenora (8-17-2-0).

Rangers head coach Tyler Carefoot said the Rangers deserved a better fate in both games.

Parkland, he said, ran into penalty problems right off the bat in Saturday’s game, which resulted in two Eastman power-play goals.

“I thought we did a pretty job of trying to get back into the game. We hit a couple of posts and might have had an opportunity to make it a little bit closer,” he said.

The Rangers wanted to play a strong third period to build momentum for Sunday’s game, which they did. The Rangers could have pulled the goalie, Carefoot said, but they decided to focus on winning the period.

“Sunday, we were the better team. I think we hit two cross bars and then, with 10 seconds left to tie it, we hit a post,” he said. “I thought we played five solid periods of hockey this weekend. For the most part, I’m pretty happy.”

There are games where teams have to contend with questionable calls by the officiating and that was the case on Sunday, according to Carefoot.

“We had to persevere, not only through the Eastman Selects, but we had to beat the stripes. I just didn’t like some of the calls,” he said. “I just thought some of the calls were far too soft.”

It didn’t help that the Rangers were shorthanded with some players out of action due to injuries.

“So I was proud of how everybody competed and just didn’t quit,” he said.

The Rangers have just one game this week, Sunday on the road in Souris against the Southwest Cougars. Then they play the Yellowhead Chiefs, Dec. 20, in Shoal Lake.

Carefoot hopes the team can enter the Christmas break on a high note.

“We always say that the rural teams are the teams we’re supposed to compete well against and we beat both of them this year. So I feel that the guys will be up for it. If we can find a way to get four points going into the holidays, everybody will be feeling good about themselves,” he said, adding the Rangers will face the league power houses in the new year.

Defenceman Bo Eisner had a tremendous weekend for the Rangers.

“He’s one of those guys who, not only does he produce offensively, but he’s a tremendous defender,” Carefoot said. “He logs a lot of minutes and he does a tremendous job in the O zone and defensive zone. He’s a quiet leader. He just goes out and does his job. He’s a low-maintenance kind of guy. For him the journey is just starting and he’s got lots of recognition throughout, not just the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, but also going west, as well. I just feel he’s a guy that goes under the radar.”

The Dauphin Kings snapped a four-game losing skid, last week, and are now riding a three-game winning streak.

Dauphin snapped the losing streak with a 6-5 shootout win over the Portage Terriers, last Wednesday in Portage, with local product Rylan Gibbs netting the shootout winner.

The Kings made it two straight with a 4-1 win over the Winnipeg Freeze, Friday in Winnipeg. On Sunday, Jakob Brook’s second of the game, 47 seconds into overtime lifted Dauphin to a come-from-behind 5-4 win over the Swan Valley Stampeders.

As a result, the Kings enter the week in fourth place with 36 points, one back of the Waywayseecappo Wolverines and three behind the Stampeders and OCN Blizzard, who are tied for first in the MGEU West Division.

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When the current skating season started 16-year-old Breken Brezden’s goal was to qualify for the Canadian Tire National Skating Championships.

To do so, she had to finish in the top 18 skaters from among the 37 other competitors hitting the ice at the recent Skate Canada Challenge in Winnipeg.

The only Manitoban in the event, Brezden accomplished that goal, finishing 10th overall, thus qualifying to compete at nationals, Jan. 9 to 15 in Oshawa, Ont.

Brezden started skating at the age of four. Her dad Brian, first put her in hockey skates.

“Because he was a hockey player,” Brezden noted.

After Brezden was registered for CanSkate, it wasn’t long before her local instructor Donna Kemp-Drysdale told her parents to get her into figure skates.

“Because I don’t think I’m really built for hockey,” she said.

Kemp-Drysdale has had a great influence on Brezden’s skating, teaching her a lot of the basics.

“She’s taught me all of my dances pretty much. She’s taught me the good skating skills and good work ethic. She really started me young on those types of things,” Brezden said, adding Kemp-Drysdale was also the one who encouraged her to start learning under guidance of Patricia Hole, a professional skating coach based in Virden.

Kemp-Drysdale had told Brezden she didn’t think she could provide the resources and knowledge to keep improving.

“I’m super thankful for her and all the things that she’s been able to help me with and the fact that she’s been able to pass me on to more coaches who can really help me out,” Brezden said.

Brezden has always considered herself to be someone who enjoys skating, something Kemp-Drysdale saw, as well.

“That’s why she told my dad, ‘you’ve got to get that girl in figure skates,’,” she said.

Brezden has been training under Hole for about seven or eight years now, initially traveling to Virden once a week.

“But as things progressed and I really wanted to get more competitive and I was really more committed to it, we started seeing her more often,” she said.

While it took some time to adjust to the travel, eventually, the Brezdens got used to it.

“I’m really thankful for my dad. He calls himself my chauffeur for skating. I’m thankful for him for being able to make all this time and drive me out to Virden and to Brandon and to Yorkton when it’s horrible driving conditions,” she said.

Brezden’s mother has family in Hamilton, Ont., and it was while visiting last Christmas that she skated with the local skating club.

“It was for a couple days and then we came back. And then this summer is where we really kicked it up and we said that’s the place that I need to be, because they have a lot of good competitive skaters there and I wanted to be around that. And I wanted to have that intensity of training,” she explained. “So we decided for the summer, we went there and I skated for about five weeks.”

At the end of the summer, a decision was made for Brezden to continue training in Hamilton through the fall and early part of winter.

“For me, I realized I had been progressing so much and I really felt like I was making improvements and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to keep that same rate of improvement up as we were coming back to Dauphin and having to drive everywhere,” she said, adding she is thankful she made that decision. “Because it’s turned out really well so far to move out there for a bit for my first semester of classes and to really work hard and train with the coaches in Hamilton,” she said.

To accommodate her training, Brezden is taking courses online.

Brezden has noticed an improvement in her skating herself since she started training in Hamilton and it is showing in the results.

“From the past competitions, we’ve just kept building, kept on making those, whether they be small steps or big steps, we just kept on making those improvements,” she said.

One of the highlights of her training in Hamilton came a couple of months ago when Brezden hit her first triple flip, which was a great accomplishment.

“It’s been a jump that I was working on for quite a while throughout the summer. The feeling of landing a new jump is always a really good feeling, because it’s satisfying because you know it’s something you’ve been working towards and you’ve been really wanting to get,” she said, adding it will be a while before she is confident enough to incorporate the jump into her program. “I definitely need to gain more consistency on it, though, because right now, it’s not to the point where I can include into my programs. For now. I’m continuing to work on it and hopefully, we can get there.”

Last month, Brezden won the gold medal at provincials, a feat which gave her a good feeling to be able to skate well in her home province.

There was some trepidation at the Skate Canada Challenge as to whether Brezden would qualify for nationals after her long program skate wasn’t as good as she had hoped it would be. But there was a sense of relief when she realized she had made it.

“That’s been my goal for this whole season. That’s what has helped push me through the hard training moments,” she said.

Brezden’s goal for nationals is to train to get her triple-triple into her short program.

“And I just want to go out there and have the best skates that I can. Do what I know I can do and what I’ve been doing in training,” she said.

Throughout her skating endeavours, Brezden has received a lot of support from her family and friends, which she appreciates.

Her dad, she said, spends a lot of time on Facebook and constantly posts updates on her. And when she can’t read the comments herself, he reads them to her.

“It’s nice to have people believe in you. It’s a good feeling, for sure,” she said, adding there was a lot of family and friends at the Challenge in Winnipeg cheering her on. “I’m really thankful for it and it’s nice to know they have an interest in what I love to do and what I’m doing,” she said.
Brezden admits the Olympics is a dream, but at this point in her career, it is a distant dream.

“I have a lot of goals that I need to get before that point. People don’t realize, the Olympics is the competition that’s put on a pedestal to everybody. I think they don’t understand how difficult it actually is to get to that level of competition. It’s pretty crazy,” she said. “That would definitely be a dream, but baby steps for now.”

Dauphin Public Library’s Glenn Irvine, left, admires a painting by local artist Hazel Yates as she sets up a display of her latest work.

Yates’ artwork will be on display at the library until the end of January.

A four-game losing streak had dropped the Dauphin Kings to fourth place in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s MGEU West Division.

After they were swept in a home-and-home with the Neepawa Titans the previous weekend, the Kings dropped a pair of games to the Winkler Flyers, this past weekend.

The Flyers scored a 3-1 victory, Friday in Winkler, before completing the home-and-home sweep with a 5-2 win, Saturday in Dauphin.

Prior to the weekend, the Kings were busy on the trade front as the Dec. 1 deadline limiting teams to 25 player cards came and went.

The transactions began with the Kings acquiring forward Logan Walker, 19, from the Estevan Bruins of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League for future considerations.

Defenceman Thomas Stewart was then shipped to the Winnipeg Freeze for a 2023 third round draft pick, while forward Riley Borody was traded to the Kam River Fighting Walleye of the Superior International Junior Hockey League for futures.

The deals didn’t stop there as forward Jovan Malay was sent to the SJHL’s Nipawin Hawks for futures and Blake Boudreau and futures were sent to the Portage Terriers for forward Jamie Valentino, 20.

The final deal saw defenceman Jonathon Wong sent to the Merritt Centennials of the British Columbia Hockey League for futures.

Kings head coach and general manager Doug Hedley said the new-look Kings will be okay once everyone is back from injuries and suspensions.

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