Looking for to better things

[Moonergroupie]

Must say that as much as I would have liked to see the Rebels beat the PA Raiders in the last game and get some playoff experience for the young core, moving up the 3 or 4 places in the first round of the draft because of the loss will hopefully pay bigger dividends going forward. Might be even more important for moving us up in the import draft to get the much needed defensemen we so desire.

Been looking through the previous bantam drafts for the last few years and it becomes pretty obvious where the problem lied with the Rebels this year. That being the 2010 Bantam Draft. Doetzel taken 1st round, 12th overall. Doetzel has been steady for the Rebels, but if you look at who was taken after him in the first round....Sam Reinhart - 15th, Nic Petan - 16th shows a huge missed opportunity. 2nd Round - Cory Millette, not good enough to even play on the team this year. 3rd round - Kryczka, exactly....who. Same thing, look at players taken after Kryczka.....Decheneau, Kopeck, Luke Philip.
Becomes pretty obvious why the Kootney Ice look as good as they do this year.

The bright side is that the Rebels won the 2011 draft hands down. Getting Bleakley with the 21st pick and Fluery with the 43rd were absolute steals.

2012 - Musil with the 6th overall I would consider a steal. Mind you they said he would have gone higher but said he wouldn't report to some of the teams. Even an impact player like Pawlenchuk in the fourth round is looking good going forward.

2013 - Don't know if I am sold on de Wit yet as our first round pick, although he does come from a winning background which can only help the Rebels. Really looking forward to the potential that Mahura has going forward.

In a league where it is the 18 and 19 year olds that make or break the season, I can't help but think that the Rebels are in good hands with the 2011 and 2012 picks. If we can get some goaltending, should be better in 2014/2015 and look out in 2015/2016.

[SectionNDeserter]

2012 draft would be the first with Shaun Sutter as senior scout. Like you, I like the Musil and Mahura picks and snagging Pawlenchuk in the 4th round, and I also think they did a pretty good job of finding Burke and McCarty but I also think that DeWit and Burman are probably years from making any sort of contribution at the WHL level, or even making the team in DeWit's case.

With the 6th overall pick this year, they should be able to get another pretty quality future player, and with two good import draft picks, they should be able to add at least one skilled blueliner right away.

[LongTimeFan]

Been looking through the previous bantam drafts for the last few years and it becomes pretty obvious where the problem lied with the Rebels this year. That being the 2010 Bantam Draft. Doetzel taken 1st round, 12th overall. Doetzel has been steady for the Rebels, but if you look at who was taken after him in the first round....Sam Reinhart - 15th, Nic Petan - 16th shows a huge missed opportunity. 2nd Round - Cory Millette, not good enough to even play on the team this year. 3rd round - Kryczka, exactly....who. Same thing, look at players taken after Kryczka.....Decheneau, Kopeck, Luke Philip.
Becomes pretty obvious why the Kootney Ice look as good as they do this year.

The bright side is that the Rebels won the 2011 draft hands down. Getting Bleakley with the 21st pick and Fluery with the 43rd were absolute steals.

2012 - Musil with the 6th overall I would consider a steal. Mind you they said he would have gone higher but said he wouldn't report to some of the teams. Even an impact player like Pawlenchuk in the fourth round is looking good going forward.

I couldn't agree more with you regarding the 2010 draft. The bantam draft is the lifeblood of any WHL team (ok, maybe not Portland!) and it just kills your organization to go through an entire draft without selecting even ONE impact player, and that's exactly what happened in 2010. In fact, that's pretty much what's happened for 10 years in Red Deer, other than the odd hit in the first or 2nd round, especially with a top 5 pick.

I agree that Bleackley and Fleury were excellent picks, but they might be the only players to play out of that draft (aside from Mpofu, who the jury's still out on IMO). Other teams seem to find gems in the later rounds, but we have a difficult time doing so, especially on defense. I keep hearing that we were a young team this season, but every time I looked at the roster I saw a bunch of below average 18 year old defensemen who will return next season as 19 year old below average defensemen - without Bartosak to mitigate the damage. 18 is not young in the WHL, these guys were just thrust in because there was nobody else who could play. Yes, we have Fleury, and he's a stud, but he's on his own, and one doesn't have to look up or down Hwy 2 any further than Edmonton (Mayo, Irving) or Calgary (Thomas, Sanheim) to realize teams that are already better than us still have more depth at that position and age next season.

I'm a steadfast Rebels fan and have been since the days of Mark Dawkins, Darren Van Impe et al, but it's getting tougher and tougher to keep the faith. Outside of the 10-11 season that still ended in a short playoff, we fans have waited a loooong time for any real significant talent to accumulate. I'm not buying the "young team" thing, because they weren't...especially if you factor who was in the lineup every night. The fact is, they lack depth and have for a long time.

I hope Shaun Sutter is the answer, and it would certainly appear in the early going that recent drafts have been better. I guess time will tell, but personally, I'm bracing myself for another season of disorganized, 45 shots against-per-game abuse!

[SectionNDeserter]

Year one guy here too, season ticket holder since their second season in the league. I think there were things this season that I saw as positives, and led to my enjoyment of the season, as well as a few negatives that led to a lack of enjoyment.

Positives:

1 - Got to watch the best goaltender in the CHL single-handedly win a handful of games, and play out his last season in the league.

2 - Was treated to an above my expectations performance from Connor Bleackley and Adam Musil

3 - Got to watch most of the twelve rookies that they started the season with improve to varying degrees through the course of the season, a few of them into decent hockey players.

4 - Really liked the deals that Sutter made closer to the trade deadline. Brought in a motivated player like Sterzer, and finally sold off an asset for some picks and a promising forward, rather than just sitting on them. I actually can't remember the last time he did this, if he has ever done it before at all!

5 - Liked how the forwards played and improved after Lucas Sutter had season-ending surgery. Particularly Johnson bouncing back from a few concussions to really play a hard-nosed game that he didn't have before his injury.

6 - The re-emergence of Scott Feser. Watching him dog it in back-to-back training camps, and get reassigned to the AJHL at the start of the season was disappointing, but I think that from watching him play in the last half of the season, he finally gets it. He was one of the harder working players in the second half, every night.

7 - The defensive play of Doetzel. I have given him a lot of criticism over his one-dimensional play, but he was the ONLY defenseman that played well in his own end of the ice this season.

Negatives:

1 - The defense. When players let you down on forward you have 12-16 of them to work with, and you bump them down a line or two for a few games, and they either respond or they don't. With defensemen however, you have 6-8 of them, and if they let you down, you don't just not score, you get down in games, and there just isn't as much to work with lineup-wise. Fafard was not able to build on his previous season's success, and it seemed like the puck was going in the net every time he was on the ice this season. Sutter sent Mpofu home in his rookie season to transform from a defenseman to a forward that season, looking back, he probably should have done the same to Gaudet.

2 - Lukas Sutter. Made poor plays and took penalties that just sucked the life out of this team all season. One of the most consistently lazy players that I have ever seen put a Rebel's jersey on. I was excited to get a player that could actually win a faceoff when he was acquired in the offseason, but just turned into a huge disappointment.

3 - The decision to keep a 16 year old goaltender up to watch Bartosak play 65 games. Burman was the same player that he was when he started the season. I hope that he starts to improve next season, but I am not optimistic.

4 - Not fixing at least some of the glaring deficiencies on the blueline at the deadline. Not sure if there just wasn't a deal to be made, but I was shocked to see both Gaudet and Fafard still on the roster after the deadline, and subsequently having to watch them fumble around in their own end for the rest of the season. Was probably the peak of my disappointment, because I knew I had to endure watching even the weakest of teams have their way with them in their own end for the rest of the season.

[calcheyup]

Well, I bit the bullet and bought season tickets, so I really hope theres a bit better product out there next year.

[Philz]

Here is my two cents

Have been a season ticket holder since day 1 when they played the PA raiders in back to back home games.

I attend every game possible winning or losing season. It is a night out and you get to see the regulars at the game.

Here is my beef, my personal opinion and I will vent

How can teams like Calgary, Edmonton, Kootney, Med Hat always have good teams. Despite the 01-03 seasons Red Deer has been average at best. Kootney has made the playoffs every year since they arrived in Cranbrook. It is just so frustrating as a paying customer and a diehard fan to see other teams succeed and yet we have or had potential and never go anywhere.

Since the parting of Carter Sears and the Rebels, there hasn’t been a strong team. We took RNH 1st over all, well that’s because we were so bad the year before. As stated in an above post you build your team with the Bantam Draft, which is 100% correct. How do our so called scouts still have a job? Yes I see Shaun Sutter is now the guy in charge, but we better start to see some decent picks.

I could go on and on, but time to shift gears.

It’s awesome that we have a great facility like the centrium and a kick ass jumbotron It would be nice if we were able to get more than one opening video for the ENTIRE YEAR. If you are going to "pump up the crowd" let’s get the fans engaged, change things up, say no to the countdown video that would put my kid to sleep and yes to crowd engaging music and excitement. Time to hire a new game day host, the crowd is done with the old and time for the new. Joe has done a good job for many years, but everything has its shelf life.

I figure if we have another disappointing season, I will cancel my season tickets and get hired on as an usher. Why not get paid to watch the games.

My rant is done, can’t wait till September for the season to begin.

[SectionNDeserter]

How can teams like Calgary, Edmonton, Kootney, Med Hat always have good teams.

Three seasons ago, Calgary had a .371 winning percentage. Med Hat missed the playoffs for the entire 90's (possibly a record?). They have had some success too, but it is a bit of a stretch to say that they ALWAYS have good teams. Will agree with Kootenay, they really seem to get the most out of their teams, even without a lot of big-name stars or fan support.

Since the parting of Carter Sears and the Rebels, there hasn’t been a strong team.

I looked at the last three seasons that Carter was the head scout, and their first three selections were Paul Kurceba, Dan Mercer and Jacob Dietrich, then Matt Cline, Jordan Knackstedt and Greg Coburn, then Brandon Sutter, Shawn Hunter and Pat Kozyra. I assume that Carter had little to do with drafting Sutter, and Knackstedt is the only other player in that group that made any sort of meaningful impact in the WHL. He had some really good draft seasons in the 90s, however he was as big of a part of their mediocre and dreadful mid-decade teams.

How do our so called scouts still have a job?

Same way that some of the WHL refs still have jobs, lack of experienced/willing replacements. I may be wrong, but I think there are a number of new scouts in the last four years or so (Brad Twordik, Chad McLeod, Peter Loubardias for a while?). I think they have even added a US scout or two, though we still haven't seen very many drafted American players show up in Red Deer.

Time to hire a new game day host, the crowd is done with the old and time for the new. Joe has done a good job for many years, but everything has its shelf life.

Who could do the job better, wants to do it, and also currently lives in Red Deer? If you have been a STH since day one, then you also remember when Dallas Kitt was the game-day host... Yikes!

[calcheyup]

What really needs to happen is for Sutter to start running the club like a D-1 football program and/or the Portland Winterhawks. User the table salaries, cars, women, etc. Attract some real talent. I want to see Bleacks cruising around town next year in a Lambo.

[SectionNDeserter]

I am surprised that with the high volume of pro/NHL players that Sutter churns out in Red Deer, and the exodus of players ditching NCAA to come back to the CHL every season, that they have yet to land even one of them. You look at all or most of the powerhouse teams in the league over the last decade or so, and they are teams that seem to have a top NCAA player leave school and land in their laps every other year.

[calcheyup]

I am surprised that with the high volume of pro/NHL players that Sutter churns out in Red Deer, and the exodus of players ditching NCAA to come back to the CHL every season, that they have yet to land even one of them. You look at all or most of the powerhouse teams in the league over the last decade or so, and they are teams that seem to have a top NCAA player leave school and land in their laps every other year.

Yeah, turning Dumba into Tambellini wouldn't have got any complaints from me.