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| The Blades celebrate a goal on March 17. |
If you play, coach and manage in the WHL, you know you will
deal with fan criticism at some point. The same goes for those in the media
that cover the league.
Due to how much the mainstream media in Canada has been cut,
teams like the Blades aren’t covered on an everyday basis like they once were.
If the team has a big news hit that attracts most to almost all the community’s
media both mainstream and non-mainstream, it seems like fans pay attention to
those hits more than usual due to the fact they are receiving the same information
from seemingly numerous sources.
There were two hits last season the fans seemed to be caught
up on judging by the reaction on social media and radio call in lines. The
first was the action that occurred on the personnel front the two days before
and the day of the WHL’s Jan. 10 trade deadline.
The second hit came when Dean
Brockman was relieved of his duties as head coach on March 18, which occurred the
day after the Blades played their final regular season game where they downed
the Prince Albert Raiders 5-4 at the SaskTel Centre.
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| Winger Josh Paterson emerged as a key scorer last season. |
The Blades finished three points back of the Prince Albert
Raiders (32-27-9-4) for the second wildcard berth in the conference.
With the Blades having missed the post-season again, it
seemed a sizable group of fans took what happened at the trade deadline and
Brockman’s departure in directions that were not intended. The uproar was a bit
startling, because Blades fans had seemed to be more on the quiet side in
recent years.
First let’s review what happened shortly before the WHL
trade deadline passed.
On Jan. 8, Saskatoon sent Libor Hajek, who is a 19-year-old
import Czech defenceman and had a signed NHL entry-level contract with the
Tampa Bay Lightning, to the Regina Pats in exchange for 19-year-old defenceman
Dawson Davidson, 16-year-old forward prospect Tristen Robins and a first round
selection in the 2019 WHL Bantam Draft.
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| Max Gerlach was an important trade pick up for the Blades. |
Before deadline passed on Jan. 10, the Blades made one more
deal acquiring centre Eric Florchuk, who was in his 17-year-old season, from
the Victoria Royals for a first round selection in the 2019 WHL Bantam Draft, a
first round selection in the 2021 WHL Bantam Draft and a fourth round selection
in the 2018 WHL Bantam Draft that was originally obtained from the Brandon
Wheat Kings in an earlier deal.
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| Blades C Eric Florchuk (#17) works his way through the Raiders. |
In that flurry of action, it seemed fans got caught up on
the names of Hebig and Hajek and didn’t hear anything else that happened. It
was interpreted that the Blades were throwing a grenade at their roster and
giving up on the season playing out of an extremely tough East Division by
dumping their two best players.
The truth was they worked the roster in a way that they were
still able to compete for a playoff berth that season and gained assets to help
in the future. Saskatoon posted a 20-19-2-1 record in the 42 games played
before those trades and a 15-14-1 mark in the 30 games that came after those deals.
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| Goalie Nolan Maier makes a glove stop for the Blades last season. |
The Blades still had a roster that could compete with the
rest of the teams in the East Division, and they compiled an 18-17-2-1 mark
against their East Division rivals.
When the Blades released Brockman at the end of the season,
it felt like some of the heat thrown the way of Blades general manager Colin
Priestner went way over the top. I remember viewing a number of comments sent
his way via the public social media platform of Twitter addressed to his
Twitter handle that made me feel uncomfortable.
It almost felt like he might just get jumped in the street
or physically harmed in some way, and that is taking things too far.
I thought it was fair comment for fans to say they thought
missing the playoffs was less Brockman’s fault than Priestner’s fault, because
Brockman has a lengthy hockey background and Priestner has a much smaller one in
comparison.
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| Fans took the release of Dean Brockman as Blades head coach hard. |
The scenario of people grinding an axe due to a family
member getting a high ranking position because another family member is the manager
or owner is something that has come up frequently over the course of time in
the work place.
Still, there were times the criticism of Colin on that front
went from fair comment to being beyond personal on that front which isn’t
right.
For me, the separation between Priestner and Brockman felt
like more of a situation where the two sides determined they couldn’t work
together anymore, which is something that often happens in sports.
Priestner has made good moves and played a hand in bringing
netminder Nolan Maier, forwards Kirby Dach, Chase Wouters and Josh Paterson and
defencemen Jackson Caller and Jake Kustra to the Blades. They are all quality
players, and it would not be a surprise if the Blades had a strong season in
2018-19.
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| Blades GM Colin Priestner took heat from fans. |
No one can control how some fans will take that information.
It also has to be viewed as a good thing in one respect fans can still be
really passionate about the team.
Hopefully, some in the loud vocal group of fans will learn
to maybe take deep breaths before reacting on big developments with Saskatoon’s
WHL squad. At the end of the day, the Blades are only playing a game.
If you have any
comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them
to stankssports@gmail.com.
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