Former Flin Flon Bombers star winger Brandon Switzer will continue his hockey career while earning an education with the Grant MacEwan Griffins.
The Bombers announced last week that Switzer, 20, has committed to Edmonton’s Grant MacEwan University Griffins men’s hockey program of the ACAC for the 2016-17 season.
Switzer turned heads last season as he finished the regular season with 75 points (32G, 42A) in 53 games and added another 19 points (10G, 9A) in 16 playoff games.
With numbers like that he earned the attention of NCAA Division I programs and had an offer from one school. When it was discovered that the forward had played the last four months of the season with a ruptured ACL, the offer was pulled.
“Switz is an all-heart guy,” said Bombers head coach and general manager Mike Reagan. “He put up great numbers, plays with a lot of grit and pride. It says a lot about him to play that long, in big-game situations, with an injury like that. It’s unfortunate that he couldn’t get a deal done with a NCAA program, but Grant MacEwan is really excited to have him come to their program.”
Switzer also turned down a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) offer, stating that Grant MacEwan was a better fit.
“We are extremely excited to have Brandon commit to our program at MacEwan,” said Griffins head coach Bram Stephen. “He is a person and player that we believe will be an integral part of our core moving forward, and [we] appreciate all of the support from the Flin Flon Bomber organization. We know we have gotten significantly better bringing him into our organization and look forward to him wearing the maroon and white [also the Griffins’ colours] in future years.”
Along with his play, Switzer will long be remembered by Flin Flon fans for an incident during the 2016 playoffs. When Weyburn Red Wings players tried to steal a celebratory moose leg tossed onto the Whitney Forum ice, Switzer skated the length of the ice into the opposing players to retrieve the leg.
That act helped the community come together for a long playoff run and set off the #DontMessWith
TheMooseLeg movement.
– Compiled from a Flin Flon Bombers news release
