The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Rookie of the Year honours may not be far off for Flin Flon Bomber forward Reid MacLeod, but for now he will accept Rookie of the Month recognition. The SJHL gave the Bombers top scorer the honour after he recorded five goals and 16 points in 14 games in October. "It's a nice honour," MacLeod said, following practice on Monday. "There's a lot of good rookies out here. I'm kind of disappointed I couldn't do it on a winning note." MacLeod said he expected to be playing a third or fourth line role with the Bombers when he joined the team. Six games into the season, coach-GM Doug Stokes placed him with Dennis Kubat and Pierre-Luc Boucher and the trio has flourished. "I've got probably two of the best linemates in the league," MacLeod said. "We work real well together, we see the ice well together and that's pretty much it." Stokes commended his rookie with comments of consistency, but it goes beyond that. "He's a player that coaches trust," the Bombers coach-GM added. "He plays in all areas of the game. His work ethic is outstanding, his consistency is there and I'm sure Reid would be the first to tell you that he's playing with two pretty good linemates and have helped him become successful. The area Stokes has noticed the most improvement in MacLeods' game is his strength. "He's real strong on the puck and he's got good puck skills and he's a load to handle 1-on-1 in the offensive end," Stokes noted. "The other things he does, he's been doing all year, he can shoot, and he knows where the net is and he's willing to get in those small areas." Where MacLeod has noticed improvement is seeing the game. "When I first came up it was pretty quick and now a little more time I feel, a little more patience I have," he explained. MacLeod, who has 24 points in 24 games, trails La Ronge Ice Wolves rookie Everette Lerner by two points as of Nov. 6 for the rookie scoring lead.
