Tag Archives: Cameron Collins

Toneff Likes The Physicality His Team Is Showing

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The Comox Valley Glacier Kings have been playing very good hockey in the past couple months and one of the reasons is because of their grittiness. Unfortunately the GKings aren’t the type of team that can rely just on skill alone like some other teams in the VIJHL. They rely on fundamental defensive hockey, good goaltending and the aforementioned grit. So far it has been working and as the season goes on, the players are buying in more and more and are being given more freedom to do more offensively.

It seems that head coach/GM Curtis Toneff is getting a lot out of his club right now but he sees that his guys can still do more. When it comes to being physical, he says he’s happy with some aspects but other parts can improve, “I like our d-zone physicality, I think we can go in and be heavier on the forecheck. I really liked our ‘protect the team’ mentality. Some guys, I’m not gonna lie, have kept their jobs because they’ve shown that the team and the logo on the jersey is more important than themselves by sacrificing and putting their body on the line. You know a guy has gotten a cheap shot 3 of the last 4 games and there’s a guy right there answering the bell and holding them accountable. Social media can be positive and negative, let’s face it everyone can see everything. Clearly seeing these fights, people will think twice before taking liberties with our players in vulnerable spots.” Comox is averaging 19.5 penalty minutes per game. Some of that is from being over-physical and a lot of it still stems from being undisciplined. In the North Division, the teams with the 3 least amount of penalty minutes are also the bottom 3 teams in the division. Maybe sometimes taking aggressive penalties is necessary. Nanaimo has the most PIM’s followed by Oceanside and Comox Valley and those squads are 1-2-3 in that same order.

Hockey has always been a rough sport compared to a lot of other ones. Over the past decade or two, rules have been put in place to try and stop players from getting hurt. There was a big backlash from fans and players themselves saying that certain rules make it easier for certain types of incidents to happen because there can be no recourse. Doesn’t matter what side of the fence you sit on, it has been a much talked about topic. I am onboard with the old school way of thinking. If you intentionally take a shot against a team’s star player, goalie or much smaller opponent, you may have to answer the bell when it comes to making sure it doesn’t happen again. In the past couple games, we have seen examples of where Glacier Kings teammates have had each others backs. On Thursday in Victoria, Joseph Melichar kneed Tee Hagel and Brandon Taylor immediately stuck up for his teammate. Then on Saturday in Oceanside, Brodie Wade caught Cameron Collins with a huge open ice hit and Easton Sangris answered the bell for his linemate. I asked Toneff if the game is changing since the VIJHL became independent of Hockey Canada. “With our rules, it’s obviously not something we encourage and I never thought the game would go back like it has a little bit. If you look at the big picture, there’s not a ton of head shots like there was 4 or 5 years ago when maybe these kids were wearing cages or when there was big suspensions for fights. We don’t encourage 16 and 20 year old kids to punch each other in the head but at the end of the day it’s kind of helping the honor of the game in my opinion. I’m a little bit old school and most guys would tell you that but if the head shots are going down, guys have more respect for each other and you create a bigger team environment around it as long as you don’t go back to the barbaric days like the old ‘jungle’, it’s how the game is played.” I still watch those old clips of junior hockey when it was the ‘wild west’ with tons of scoring and tons of fighting. Comparing those days with todays games… both are entertaining but today’s game is a better calibre of hockey and also a lot more safe.

Brandon Taylor has played in 22 games (16 with Comox) this season as he has been trying to earn minutes. Going into Thursday’s game in Victoria, he had never had a fighting major in his VIJHL career which started in 2023. He did not hesitate to go after Joseph Melichar once he saw that the referee wasn’t going to call a penalty. Curtis liked that he had his teammate’s back, “Brandon Taylor is a guy that, you know he was out of the line up, had limited minutes and was kind of on the fringe there for a little bit. I think he knew that. He would do ‘that’ (fight on Thursday) and then had a really good game in Oceanside on Saturday. He’s been in the league for three years and it’s nice to have that veteran depth back there and a local guy. He is very low maintenance and has been a sneaky good pick up for us.” The 5’10” defenceman from Courtenay has 2 assists and 9 penalty minutes since coming over from Nanaimo earlier this season.

As important as being physical is, the Glacier Kings obviously have some skill as well. And recently, they just upgraded in that department by signing Rolan Amin who is a familiar face in these parts. Amin has not only been able to rack up points wherever he has played but he has also played in leadership roles. The Yeti signed the 20 year old about a week and a half ago after playing in the BCHL. The Glacier Kings bench boss talked about the Burnaby native, “Rolan was committed and playing in Humboldt at the start of the year and they had a big trickle down from the Western Hockey League which ended up costing him his spot there. It’s never easy when that happens. There was about a week where he was wondering where his future was at with hockey. He decided to play at home in the ‘PIJHL’ but I think a couple weeks in or a month in he really missed the environment in Comox, being with his teammates. He still had that desire to get to the next level but after Christmas he decided to come back and it didn’t really cost us anything to get him back because his rights belonged to us in our league. It’s nice to get him back. We now have three former captains, we have our current captain Kyle Mayenburg, Rolan wore the ‘C’ for us last year and we have Gavin Munro who wore the ‘C’ with the Nanaimo Buccaneers last year. I think our leadership in our room is or should be as good or better than any team but I think we can improve in a lot of areas and luckily we have 9 more games to do so.” For the Yeti last season, Amin put up 10G, 22A, 32Pts in 28 games. He also amassed 29 points in 23 games with the Burnaby Steelers this year before becoming a Glacier king for a second time on January 19th.

It’s ‘Gameday’ tomorrow and Comox will be taking on the class of the VIJHL. The Peninsula Panthers come into their home game with a 31-5-1-0 record. Comox has handed the Panthers one of those five losses but overall have been outscored by a 23-7 margin in their 3 meetings. It’s their final head to head game in the regular season and it would be a nice accomplishment if they could tie the season series. I will have a full preview of that matchup tomorrow as well as the GKings lineup in the “Gameday Lineups” page on this blog. Have a good Thursday everybody.

Darryl Skender

Country Thunder On Country Night In Oceanside

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The players took “Country Night” seriously last night as it was a rough and rugged game at the Howie Meeker Arena. The Comox Valley Glacier Kings came back from a 2-0 deficit with 4 unanswered goals and a 4-2 victory. Both goaltenders stood tall throughout the entire game. The match had huge hits, a fight, some weird bounces and a ton of Grade ‘A’ scoring chances.

The Gens got on the board early in the first period started when GKings forward Easton Sangris wound up for a slap shot but the puck was knocked away before he could make contact with it. Braylon Becker carried it the other way, gave a quick pass to Max Boyle who slid a backhand feed to Logan Duncan and he one-timed it into the empty net.

Just past the halfway point of the period, Brodie Wade caught Cameron Collins with a massive hit.

The Glacier Kings took exception to that open ice hit. Easton Sangris went after Wade and the two combatants went toe to toe in one of the most spirited fights I can remember in the VIJHL. Both guys traded huge right hands in a fight that lasted 24.5 seconds.

Both players were given 5 minutes for fighting. Then as time was running out in the period, the Generals would make it 2-0 with just 0.6 seconds remaining on the clock. A goal mouth scramble took place after a fanned shot in the slot and it was poked in by Levi Green. All the traffic in front of the net made it impossible to see.

That’s how the first period ended. Shots were 10-9 in favor of the Gens.

In the 2nd period, Comox pulled within one goal on the power play. It started with a faceoff win. The puck came back to Kyle Mayenburg at the blue line, the Powell River native took the puck to the middle of the ice and slid it back to the side boards where he had vacated and Rolan Amin beat Andreas Bylerius on the short side.

Just 43 seconds later, the Yeti would tie the game on a bit of a lucky bounce. Sheldon Alexander won the faceoff to Easton Sangris. His shot missed the net but took a weird bounce off the backboards. Goaltender Andreas Bylerius looked back to the wrong side of the net behind him and Alexander backhanded it into the empty net with the netminder’s back to the play.

The middle framed ended 2-2. Shot wound up being 13-11 in favor of the home side.

Early in the 3rd, Comox would take their first lead of the game on an innocent looking play. Leon Mikhalchuk took a shot that missed on the short side and the puck went around the boards to the other side. Haden Parker took a quick snap shot from the side wall through traffic that went off the post and in and it was suddenly 3-2.

Both goaltenders stood on their heads keeping it a one goal game for most of the final frame. The contest would end with an empty net goal from Quinten Harvie from center ice.

Shots in the final period were 13-11 for the Glacier Kings.

The win improves Comox Valley’s record to 19-15-4-1 and sole possession of 3rd place in the North Division. They move 2 points ahead of idle Campbell River but the Storm do have a game in hand as well as the tie-breaker for now. Next up will be the high-flying Peninsula Panthers next Friday in Peninsula. As for the Gens, they fall to 25-13-1-0 and remain tied for first with Nanaimo. Oceanside is off until Thursday when they travel to the Harbour City for a battle of first place teams.

Other Observations:

  • Last night was the Glacier Kings 3rd of 4 straight road games. They are 2-1 on this stretch.
  • This is one of the most physical games I’ve seen this year. It was played like hockey should be played.
  • After going 1 for 12 in their last 3 games on the PP, Comox scored on their only time with the man advantage to start their comeback.
  • The GKings PK which had allowed 6 goals in their last 19 shorthanded situations, came up big on both occasions against the Gens.
  • It was Country Night at the Howie Meeker Arena. The starting line up came out in cowboy hats as they were introduced.
  • The Gens have lost 3 of their last 4 games. Their only win in that stretch was against the #1 team in the league.
  • There was no sound for the first half of the broadcast unfortunately. Good job by Larenzo Jensen to help get it back online.
  • In the dust up between Wade and Sangris, 21 punches were thrown by Wade and 18 by Sangris. A lot of them landed squarely by both guys. They tapped each other as a sign of respect after it was over.
  • The Yeti are 7-2-2-0 in their last 11 games.
  • One of the referees got shaken up late in the 2nd period when he took an accidental stick by Gavin Mowat that caught him in the mid-section.
  • Sheldon Alexander put his body on the line with a huge blocked shot thwarting a big scoring chance with 5 minutes left in the 3rd period. That might have saved the game.
  • Somehow Oceanside picked the 1st and 2nd stars of the game. I have no idea how Lane Maarhuis never got one.
  • Curtis Toneff is really going to have some tough decisions ahead when Anthony Ganoung comes back from his lower body injury. Maarhuis has really made an impact in his 2 games since coming over from Victoria.
  • This game marked the largest attendance number of the year in the VIJHL. The announced crowd was 1025. Campbell River previously held the highest two attendance figures with 1017 and 1010.

Darryl Skender

Glacier Kings Tidbits

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The Comox Valley Glacier Kings are on a two week break, at least the ones that didn’t play in the VIJHL all-star and Top Prospects games. This was a weird part of the schedule but I’ll get into that later. Things are back to normal now and the team is getting ready for its tilt against the Victoria Cougars tomorrow.

The team has been playing well lately and are working hard to try and keep that going. Head coach/GM Curtis Toneff has been looking at ways of keeping his club focused. It hasn’t worked out as well as he had hoped because of logistical problems. The coach talked about practices, “Last week we went back to skills and small area games. I thought it was a good opportunity to do that with the time off we have. We took a few days off at the all-star break. Our players got home from the all-star break late so they had to miss practice again because of cancelled flights. So now we have 2 practices leading up to the Victoria game Thursday which is a little bit less than you’d like but it’s a good opportunity for us to get back to our system play and game play and get our intensity up for the Cougars.” Glacier King players that were involved in the all-star game were Cameron Collins, Zaya Morro and Leon Mikhalchuk. The only player of the three to record a stat in the game was Mikhalchuk who got a 5-minute major for fighting against Jacob Bernardo of the Victoria Cougars late in the first period. Collins also played in the Top Prospects game and scored a goal. Westin Churchill collected 2 assists and Anthony Ganoung stopped 12 of 15 shots in his 30 minutes of action.

I was looking at some league stats yesterday and when I dug into special teams, it was so easy to see how important that part of the game is in this league. Did you know the top 4 teams in the league hold the top 4 power play percentages. And to prove the point even more, the top 3 teams in the VIJHL hold down the top 3 penalty killing percentages. Special teams are a huge part of the game and can quite often mean the difference between winning and losing. Comox is 7th on the PP and 6th when killing penalties. I asked the coach about this topic. He said, “When it comes to the power play, most teams have a number one unit and a number two unit. Our power play looks like it’s most successful when we do a little bit less by taking what’s given to us. We move the puck quick, we get inside the interior of the ice and get to the net a little bit. We’ve had some success on the power play as of late. The PK, we’ve been solid. There’s been some nights I think where we’ve given up 3 or 4 where its cost our percentage a little bit. Two or three of those games were by far out of reach or were put out of reach anyway. I agree that special teams are important but sometimes you have to look past that first and second layer and evaluate it closer. I think that at the end of the day we have the potential of having two great power play units and have the potential to be a top 2 or top 3 team on the PK as long as we can execute coming down the stretch and into the playoffs. I believe we have the tools to do so.” Newly acquired forward Easton Sangris should help out. In fact, he scored a PP goal in just his second game with the team on January 4th. Leon Mikhalchuk leads the squad with 6 goals with the man advantage which also places him in a tie for 6th place overall in that category.

Earlier I had mentioned that this was a weird part of the schedule. I say that because the Yeti had played 6 games in 12 days (Dec. 10-21). Since then, they play just 4 times in 31 days. That’s because after the Christmas break they only played 2 weekends before having another break in their schedule. It’s also in the midst of a 4-game road stretch. It’s really too bad because they have been playing well and racking up points. To be fair, part of the extended time off is in part due to the All-Star and Top Prospect games. The GKings have gone from 12-13-2-1 on December 10th to 18-14-4-1 right now. One has to hope that all this time off hasn’t hurt their momentum. The Glacier Kings bench boss says it’s not an ideal situation, “To be honest, it’s been quite annoying, we had a great Christmas break, we had played a lot of hockey before and to come and play 4 games and then head into another break is tough. It’s been positive in the sense of figuring out some of the logistics of some guys, having them settle in and as far as practicing and getting some chemistry built because we have made some moves of late. It’s a little annoying but after the first or second period Thursday night, it won’t matter anymore. Hopefully the rest restores itself. We have no excuses now.” Another weird part of the schedule is that the Cougars and Glacier Kings have only played once through the first 37 games and now play 3 times in 3 weeks. The first game didn’t go so well, hopefully this one will be different.

Darryl Skender