With a back-to-play plan now in place and restrictions beginning to lift for hockey and gatherings, the Flin Flon Bombers are getting ready to bring the boys back.
Offseason and recruitment plans are underway for the team, who are currently slated to start play in the 2021/22 regular season this September.
“I think that, under the circumstances, there’s lots of planning that needs to take place and everybody’s excited about the fact we’re talking hockey and playing right now. It’s energizing and it feels good to not be talking about some of the other things we had to discuss before,” said Bombers head coach and general manager Mike Reagan.
“We’re talking now about showcases and start dates and camp dates and stuff like that. It feels a bit normal, so to speak.”
One of the few changes in the cards is moving the season's start date ahead a week - a move that has been proposed by several Saskatchewan teams so the start of the season doesn’t conflict with harvest time in farming communities.
“We’re starting one week later - and that’s been something that’s been discussed for years already, so that has nothing to do with COVID-19 or anything like that,” Reagan said, adding that a harvest delay won’t affect Flin Flon much.
“I mean, the only thing we farm here are rocks.”
Reagan and the Bombers are also not anticipating any issues with the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border this upcoming season, unlike last year. The Bombers were subject to health orders in Manitoba while also needing to follow rules for Saskatchewan - when Manitoba went into code red in the fall and suspended all public recreation and sports facilities, the Bombers were left in the cold, first attempting to play their remaining games on the road before the SJHL abandoned its season altogether.
While Manitoba is behind Saskatchewan and other provinces in COVID-19 response and easing restrictions, Reagan said that a rise in vaccinations and falling case numbers are giving some reassurance.
“I don’t think it will, but obviously it’s really hard to predict anything. I’m trying to not get too ahead of myself and get too optimistic, but while Manitoba is a little bit behind right now, the rollout of vaccinations is going good and we’re getting better. We’ll see a huge change here in the next month,” said the coach.
“We still have quite a few months ahead of us before the season starts but that does go quick, no question about it. I’m just trying to be patient and see how the rollout of the vaccinations goes, how much that affects where we’re at and we’ll make adjustments as we go.”
Offseason
With the future looking more set in stone than it’s been in literal years, Reagan and the team’s staff can focus more on the team that will hit the ice this fall. With only two games played last season and heavy turnover two years in a row - losing several defenders last year, then losing several key forwards this year, both due to players aging out - the Bombers this season will be dramatically different. Reagan has reeled in what he considers as great recruiting classes last summer and so far this year and is eager to show what the new group can do.
“We have a very good idea of what our team is for next season, with the recruits that we’ve signed, the returning players. There are obviously a few holes that I would like to plug, but we feel very confident that our back end and goaltending is going to be extremely strong. We’re excited about the players we’re bringing in,” he said.
Some stalwarts are likely to return for their 20-year-old seasons. Goalie Cal Schell - who played parts of last season with a club in Atlanta, Georgia and has reportedly been tendered by a separate team in Boston - is expected to be back, along with defender Cole Vardy. After being injured late in his rookie season, Vardy spent much of the past year recovering from surgery, but Reagan said he’ll be ready to go come fall.
“To me, Cole Vardy had all the makings of a true number-one defenceman at the junior A level. He’s going to be a 20-year-old next season and I think adding him to our lineup is going to be huge, with the guys we have returning,” said the coach.
Vardy will be the team’s defensive anchor, entering the season as by far the team’s most experienced D-man. Going into the season, the entire Bomber defence has 50 games of SJHL experience - 43 of those games belong to Vardy. A mostly clean slate of 2002-born defencemen joined the club last year but saw little playing time before the SJHL stopped play.
The lack of on-ice experience for the team coming north this year is worrying for Reagan, but he points out that it isn’t an isolated issue - almost every western Canadian junior team is working from a lost season.
“That's concerning, but I think every coach has that concern in our league. It's not like were the only team that didn't play,”
“If you were to try and predict who’s going to be the top four or five teams in the league, it would be very difficult to do right now.”
Three forwards will be returning from the 2020 playoff roster, with all others aging out of junior hockey. They’ll be joined by another large recruiting class from this summer, where Reagan has focused mostly on forward prospects.
“We’re going to have Mason Kaspick, [Matt] Raymond and [Jaeden] Mercier returning from the team that looked like it was maybe on the verge of competing for a championship with [Cole] Rafuse and [Alec] Malo and those guys. Those are the only forwards who are going to be returning from that group so if you’re an outsider looking in, that’s an area that definitely needs to be addressed.”
All told, Reagan feels good with the new group - but that doesn’t mean he won’t still try to lure some top-tier talent up north.
“We feel very confident with the guys that we brought in now and also last year. With the recruitment class we have this year of forwards coming in, we're extremely excited about what they're capable of. From that standpoint, from building up the hockey club, we’re feeling very confident with where we are,” said Reagan.
“Would I like to add a few more pieces? Yeah. I think that we will need to bring in at least one or two high-end forwards. If we can do that, then I like where we're sitting amongst the rest of the teams in the league.”
