Playing the defending league champions on national television. It doesn’t get any better than this in junior hockey.
Add to it the backstory of the Kelowna Rockets being the team that dispatched the Victoria Royals in the second round of the Western Hockey League playoffs last spring, and you have the makings of a marquee matchup tonight at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. Especially since the neither teams seems to have lost a step.
The Rockets lead the WHL at 18-5-1 for 37 points. They have achieved this standing under new head coach Brad Ralph, who is 34 years old, and who came across after three productive pro seasons as a bench boss in the ECHL with the Idaho Steelheads.
The surprising Royals (16-7-1) are only three points behind Kelowna at 34 points, and second best in both the B.C. Division and Western Conference, and tied for second with Red Deer in the league, in terms of points. (Prince Albert, however, has a better winning percentage than both Victoria and Red Deer because of one fewer game played).
“This is an exciting matchup, partly because of last season’s playoffs,” said veteran Royals defenceman Chaz Reddekopp, who hails from West Kelowna for even more incentive.
“We don’t play up the rivalry angle, but everybody knows [it’s there],” added the strapping seventh-round 2015 NHL draft selection of the Los Angeles Kings.
“The Rockets have a lot of skill up front with players who have a lot of smarts. We have to take away their time and space.”
Asked if he was glad to no longer have the guy they call the German Gretzky bearing down on him, Reddekopp chuckled and said: “No kidding.”
Former Rockets forward Leon Draisaitl, now with the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL, put up big numbers against the Royals last season.
“But they still have a lot of good players,” warned Reddekopp.
The five-foot-10, undrafted 20-year-old Tyson Baillie, in his fifth season with the Rockets, is second in league scoring with 42 points behind only Brayden Point (43) of the Moose Jaw Warriors. Baillie, who received a free-agent tryout in training camp this fall with the NHL’s Calgary Flames, has played five more games than Point, however. Kelowna forward Nick Merkley, the Arizona Coyotes’ first-round selection, taken 30th overall in this year’s NHL draft, has 24 points in 21 games. Rourke Chartier, another top-drawer Rockets forward, is out with an injury.
“Kelowna is definitely still a skilled team and we have a lot to prove this weekend,” said veteran Victoria forward Jack Walker.
