Not everything about the life of a major junior hockey player is glamourous.
Take, for example, the current situation of the Everett Silvertips.
Monday morning they set out on an 11-hour bus ride to Prince George, a city in remote British Columbia.
They arrived to sub-zero temperatures, meaning the majority of their three-plus day stay will be spent trying to keep warm.
But at least there are two consolations for the Tips:
1. This the last major road trip Everett takes this season, at least until the playoffs.
2. At least it’s not as grueling as the annual trip to the Eastern Conference.
“This one was easy,” Everett coach John Becanic said Tuesday via cell phone from Prince George. “It’s only two games and one team (as opposed to six games in six different cities when the team travels out east). It doesn’t even compare to the trip out east.
“But it’s really cold.”
Everett, just like every other team in the U.S. Division, usually makes just one trip to Prince George per season, playing the Cougars twice in the process. It’s a way of cutting back on the number of times the team has to make the 500-mile trek to the league’s most-remote location.
“It was uneventful,” Becanic said of Monday’s bus ride. “It took 11 hours and there was nothing major. It was clear skies, so we didn’t run into any problems.”
However, Everett tends to get an early jump on the trip to Prince George, thus the Monday night arrival for games that aren’t until tonight and Thursday.
And that means a fair amount of dead time.
That’s not a problem for one member of Everett’s team, right wing Dan Gendur. For Gendur the trip to Prince George is something of a homecoming. Everett’s co-leading scorer spent 21/2 seasons with the Cougars before coming to Everett in a trade midway through last season. He still maintains contact with people in Prince George.
“I had a lot of fun in my times up here in the winters,” Gendur recalled. “Being with my billets, going sledding now and again, they’re fond memories. And my good friend Kalvin Sagert is still on the team, though there’s not many guys I know anymore after all the trades they made.”
His ties to the city mean Gendur has some options during the free time. The rest of the team isn’t so lucky. The team held practice Tuesday afternoon and had a team-building exercise afterward. But otherwise the players are trying to find ways to pass the time until game time.
“It’s different for me,” Gendur said. “I get to go out and see people I know. But for the guys who just come up to play the games I imagine it’s pretty boring. I know some of them were going to go to a movie and some others were going to go bowling.”
But while the players may see down time, the coaches see opportunity.
“I like it,” Becanic said of the extra free time. “It gives us time to teach. It gives us a full day to prepare for a game midweek, which we never get. For games at the Events Center the guys show up at 5 p.m. (because of school obligations) and that’s it. This gives the opportunity to really concentrate on the opponent.”
In a sense, the games at Prince George are like a return to the scene of a crime. The last time the Tips traveled to Prince George they were upset by the Cougars in the second round of the playoffs last season, with the series ending in an ugly 8-2 loss.
But there are few ties remaining to that series, at least on the Prince George side. Just seven players remain from the team that ousted the Tips last season.
One player who didn’t join the Tips on the trip is winger Kyle Beach. Beach, who shares the team lead in scoring with Gendur, remained in Everett because of his concussion.
Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog: www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
