Tag Archives: Curtis Toneff

Yeti Making Progress But Still Need To Be Better

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When you look at the opening day line up and compare it to the current roster, it is very different. Is the team better now than on September 6th? The answer is pretty obvious, of course it is. Every team will be better as the season goes on by just getting more shifts, getting in better shape, playing in more situations, facing different diversity and improving on personal skill sets. But the Glacier Kings have brought in quite a few players which has really bolstered their line up. One case and point is Ethan Gobel who joined the team after the season started. He is second on the team in points and first in assists and point per game. Also Cameron Collins who has points in 3 of his last 4 games and sits 4th in team scoring despite also missed the first 3 games. In fact he has already equaled his point total of last year with the Pacific Coast Academy U18 Prep team in under half the games played. The list can go on but the moves head coach/GM Curtis Toneff has made definitely upgraded his squad. The problem is, so have the other teams.

Since most of the teams in this league have improved, who has made the best progress? Comox Valley has to be up there as they are vastly better than they were in Game 1. But is it just skill that can make a team better or are there other factors? Toneff says he’s happy with the how his team has been coming along and a big part of that is because of the players thought process, “Progress has been pretty good as a whole. I think we brought in players that we hope have one or two mindsets. Those return goal guys, veterans that are 18, 19 or 20 and simply want to win. Or the 16, 17, maybe a couple 18 year old’s that really want to get to the next level and get better everyday. Maybe that’s why they came to this league. I think if you combine those two, it’s a recipe for success. We just have to show and manage our effort and energy levels better. We’ve had weeks where we looked like we had good legs and then weeks where we don’t look like we have good legs. We talked about what they were doing the other 21 hours of the day. That becomes important this time of year. What does that other 21 hours of the day look like? Is it guys getting better or guys getting worse? It’s kind of up to them as athletes to do the right thing. It’s not always being in the gym more, it’s maybe just eating right or hydrating right or sleeping right.” It’s obvious that Curtis wants a full commitment from this team and not just during the 3 hour game.

It’s been a few weeks since the coaching staff made their decision on who the leadership group was going to be as well as who would don a letter. With that honor comes a lot of responsibility. For young kids that can be a lot of pressure. It’s still pretty new to most of them and Toneff says the lettered guys as well as the rest of the team need to take another step, “Pretty average to be honest. They have some learning to do and some growing to do like we all do. Our players have to get better and our leaders have to get better, I know I have to be better. If we want to take that next step and put some separation being average and .500, we all got to be 5 to 10 percent better here. It’s that time of the year where it’s not all sunshine and rainbows outside. There are some long days where the sun is down pretty early and you find out where your character lies. We’ll start to find out in the next month or so who has that character.” The leadership core does need to get better and it seems they are. The real evaluation should come around mid-season when everyone is more comfortable in their roles.

For now, the biggest task will be putting the Peninsula game behind them, regain their confidence and be ready for Nanaimo on Thursday. The club had started getting a little bit of swagger before Saturday’s loss. One good solid effort against the Bucs can certainly make a huge difference in a lot of different ways. We will see which way it will go tomorrow evening.

Darryl Skender

Team Focused On Moving Ahead

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It obviously wasn’t a great performance on Saturday night for the Comox Valley Glacier Kings to say the least. The 11 goals were the most they’ve given up in a game and the 6 goals in the first period was the most they’ve given up in a single period all season. In fact, the 4 goals they allowed in the second period was more than they allowed in any period previous to Saturday’s game. The 4 shots in the first period was the fewest all season, the 18 shots were their lowest game total this year. The good thing is that it was just one game and they can move on from it. The club has progressed too much since the start of the season to let this setback hurt them in the long run. It does still sting however. The thing that was disappointing was that the game was basically over by the midway point of the first period. Even offensively talented teams can only dig themselves a hole so big. A defensively-minded team is hard pressed to comeback, especially when playing the top club in the league.

Just as a refresher, the score was 6-1 just 11:48 into the contest. The Glacier Kings did play better in the third period but it was way too late to mount any kind of a comeback, especially to a squad that has only lost one game all season. Head coach/GM Curtis Toneff said it wasn’t a good night, “It was a game where after the first 5 minutes, it was over. That hadn’t happened to us this year. We ended up on the penalty kill and I tried to make some adjustments to suit our night better and I failed at that as a coach. They scored two and it’s tough as a team to get behind a team like that but we did score a goal to make it 2-1 but after that the wheels fell off. Our effort and our attitude wasn’t close to where it needed to be against a team like that. It showed by the end of the period and at the end of the game with the score. These things happen over the course of a season.” Hopefully those things don’t happen too much more. Remember Comox was playing well until Saturday’s game (4-1 in their last 5 games).

As the season has gone along, it seems that two teams have risen to the top. Peninsula (15-1-1-0) and Westshore (15-2-1-0) while everyone else is in the rearview mirror in the standings. Curtis had told me in the past that any team can beat any team this year but with the Panthers and Wolves way ahead of everyone, you can’t help but wonder about the parity. I asked him if he thought that they were in a league of their own and then the other 9 teams were in a different grouping. Toneff disagreed, “No I don’t think so. We’ve proved that we can compete with both of those teams that you eluded to, we showed that we can compete with them for two periods. If we can compete with them for two periods, then we can compete with them for three periods. For us to be successful, we have to be at full tilt. The difference between those teams is that they can be average some nights, we cannot.” Looking at past games, the Glacier Kings handed the Panthers their only regulation loss of the season back on September 28th and the Yeti were up by 2 goals on the Wolves on October 22nd before having a collapse. So yes, they have proved that they can play with the higher calibre teams but it’s like the coach says, you need to play 60 minutes against these guys.

So it was back to practice this week. I had asked the coach how he has been and he said that it he feels better now after a couple of days of frustration. It’s easy to fall into a trap after one disappointing game. Just look at my post after the 11-1 loss, I felt like it was doomsday for the club but honestly, it was just one game. With that being said, changes need to be made. You can move past the game but you also have to learn from it and not hide from it. The bench boss seemed to be in pretty good spirits. He talked about practice and maybe switching things up, “Just back to basics, systems refresh. Our rush coverage was rotten the other night. It was an effort based thing and with regards to ‘X’s’ and ‘O’s’, it’s November and maybe time for a systems refresh. I thought after the game that I’m not going to overanalyze it. You’re never as good as you think you are and you’re never as bad as you think you are.” I’m guessing it would be a minor tweaking of the systems and personnel assignments. I really couldn’t see a major overhaul based on one game. But maybe having a new face here and there and different responsibilities, it might be good. A couple of months of the same thing could get stale and easy to be scouted by other opponents.

Speaking of opponents, Nanaimo should be a good test for the Glacier Kings to see how they bounce back after an embarrassing loss. The Bucs are currently in first place in the North Division and even better at home. The reason it should be a good test is because Comox Valley knows they can play with these guys despite their good record. How do they know? Well, because they beat the Buccaneers back on September 27th at the Sports Centre. A win at the NIC on Thursday and that last game can be tossed out. That’s the great thing about sports, you can be so down one day but a couple days later things are good again.

Darryl Skender

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

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Well, this is disappointing. The Comox Valley Glacier Kings have played well lately, they’ve been picking up wins, they got themselves to .500 for the first time and in one game, it all came crashing down. The Peninsula Panthers came into Courtenay and embarrassed the Yeti 11-1. I will admit I never watched the entire game, I watched the Blue Jays Game 7. Usually if I miss the game, I watch the replay when I get home but I feel like rewatching this game might not be productive. I did breeze through some of it but it was hard to watch. There is no point in me pointing out everything that went wrong and try to analyze every little detail. They lost 11-1. That says more than anything I ever could. What I will tell you is the the Panthers scored 6 times in an 8:57 span in the first period. Allowing 11 goals in a game at home is tough, even tougher knowing that their go-to netminder Anthony Ganoung was not even dressed because they still hold three backstops on their roster. It makes you wonder if Ganoung shouldn’t be dressed for all the games and start most of them. It’s a harsh statement but anymore outings like this and it may have to be addressed. And it’s not just on the goalies, hockey is as much a team game as any sport in the world. To be fair, they played the best team in the VIJHL, I get it. Maybe this is just a one-off and come Thursday they will look good again. It’s just disappointing knowing how hard they work on their defensive game and take pride in it. I have a feeling coach Toneff is going to be pretty hard on the boys at practice next week.

On the other side, I would like to give a shout out to Panther forward Ethan Lingard. He was playing for the Panthers back when I was broadcasting and I’ve always liked him. He had 4G, 2A which is great but that’s not what I liked the most. Did you notice his hat trick goal in the second period? He didn’t celebrate, in fact he didn’t even put his hands in the air. A hat trick is something players dream about doing. He just touched gloves with linemates and skated straight to the bench to sit down, not even punching gloves with teammates sitting on the bench while skating by. That’s because he knew that the score was now 8-1. Same thing when he scored his 4th goal to make it 11-1. He didn’t showboat or embarrass his opponent. He plays the game the right way, it’s with respect, and I applaud that.

With my ramblings getting a little old and boring I will finish by saying, next week is a new, fresh week and I would expect the Glacier Kings to be flying on Thursday night in Nanaimo. I didn’t going over the scoring like I usually do, if you’re interested, please got to https://www.vijhl.com/stats/game-center/7099.

Darryl Skender