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View Full Version : Giant first hurdle awaits as Royals begin new era



CdnSailor
09-23-2011, 09:32 AM
They may be called the Victoria Royals, but few Western Hockey League prognosticators are predicting a coronation this season.

Which is fine by GM and head coach Marc Habscheid. He’s got the pundits just where he wants them.

“We’re OK with that,” said Habscheid of the pre-season picks that don’t have his club rated highly.

“We know we’re young. But I like the culture of this group.”

The Royals begin a new era in Victoria hockey tonight when they open the 2011-12 season against the Vancouver Giants at 7:30 at the PNE Pacific Coliseum. It will be the first WHL regular-season game played by a Victoria team since the Cougars were uprooted and moved to Prince George following the 1993-94 season under cover of that Commonwealth Games summer.

The Royals, which operated the last five seasons as the Chilliwack Bruins, open at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre on Saturday against the Giants in a sold-out game to be broadcast live at 7 p.m. on Shaw cable.

“It was a good rivalry when the franchise was in Chilliwack over the years and that won’t change,” said Giants head coach Don Hay, by phone from Vancouver.

“That rivalry will still be there between these clubs. Marc [Habscheid] has formed a competitive team there.”

WHL commissioner Ron Robison said he considers Saturday’s Victoria home debut one of the two feature games of the WHL opening week along with Thursday’s league curtain-raiser at Moose Jaw’s new $60-million Mosaic Place between the Warriors and visiting Brandon Wheat Kings.

“We’re excited by the opportunity of being in Victoria. There has been an absence. It is a franchise that will be successful in that market,” Robison said of the Royals.

It begins for real tonight in Vancouver against what looks to be a tough and talented Giants club that includes six-foot-four defenceman David Musil, a 2011 second-round NHL draft pick who has just been returned from the camp of the Edmonton Oilers after playing one NHL exhibition game.

While Musil will be in the lineup tonight, the Royals draw a break with Vancouver forward Brendan Gallagher missing. The 2010 fifth-round draft pick, and the Giants leading scorer last season, is still in camp with the Montreal Canadiens, where he assisted on the lone Montreal goal Wednesday as he made his NHL pre-season debut in a 3-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres. Victoria fans can only be thinking that better he pile on the points against NHL exhibition opponents than on the Royals this weekend.

Also out is one of Vancouver’s over-age 20-year-olds, strapping forward Michael Burns, sitting out the Victoria series with a two-game suspension incurred during a pre-season incident.

“The Giants make themselves hard to play against,” noted veteran Royals defenceman Zach Habscheid, who has had a few previous experiences in the land of the Giants when the Royals were the Bruins.

“They only give you a few seconds to make a play and you have to be ready to take a hit. But we’re a hard-working team, too, and we have to stick with our systems. If we do, we’ll be fine.”

Coach Marc Habscheid has given the start in the nets tonight to 20-year-old over-age Bruins-era returnee Braden Gamble and said he is thinking about starting 19-year-old Keith Hamilton, acquired in an off-season trade from Portland, in the home opener Saturday. Also fighting for one of the two netminder spots on the team is 17-year-old Jared Rathjen.

“We all want to be in there playing,” said Gamble.

Hamilton said he is enjoying the crease competition.

“Pressure always brings out the best in people,” he said.

Habscheid, however, had not named a captain by press time Thursday and said he may defer that decision to after the opening weekend.

Leadership is crucial to this Royals team, which features three 16-year-olds and six 17-year-olds on the roster.

“You look up to the older guys who have been around a lot longer,” said 16-year-old Royals forward Taylor Crunk from San Jacinto, California.

Among those vets are the greyhound-like Royals forward Kevin Sundher, a third-round NHL draft pick who was in the Buffalo Sabres camp before being returned to Victoria this week. Yet even the veterans are jacked up by being at the launch of this new epoch in Victoria hockey.

“It’s going to be a fun weekend,” said the 19-year-old Sundher.

But there is the danger of getting too excited.

“The adrenaline will be flowing, so we’re going to have to make sure to keep our emotions in check,” said Sundher.

Hay, who will coach Canada in the 2012 world junior championships over Christmas, agreed.

“Both teams are going to be excited,” he said.

“The players with the most control of their emotions will be the ones who are successful.”



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