Saturday, 8 May 2021

Raiders’ Allan brings boom at finish of hockey season

Nolan Allan in action for the Raiders in 2019-20.
Nolan Allan finished his hockey season with a bang.

On Thursday, the Davidson, Sask., product, who turned 18-years-old in late April, completed his 2020-21 campaign playing defence for Canada in the gold medal game against Russia at the men’s under-18 world hockey championships in Frisco, Texas.

Just under two minutes into that contest, Allan made the first head turning play hammering Russian captain Nikita Chibrikov into the Canadian bench. Canada would win the contest 5-3 to capture their first goal medal at the under-18 worlds since 2013.

Allan’s hit made numerous highlight reels and the still photograph of the collision showed up on various social media accounts. It was arguably the most talked about play from the game that didn’t feature Canada’s 15-year-old phenom centre Connor Bedard.

Bedard did score Canada’s first goal and assisted on the fifth tally in the victory.

Allan’s hit and gold medal win provided a sweet cap to a unique hockey campaign. It was a campaign that provided an opportunity for Allan to experience sizable growth.

In 2019-20, Allan, who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 189 pounds, had a sound 16-year-old rookie season with the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders. He appeared in 58 regular season games posting two goals, six assists and a plus-16 rating in the plus-minus department before the campaign was permanently halted in March of 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has gripped the world.

In November of 2019, Allan took part in the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge held jointly in Swift Current, Sask., and Medicine Hat, Alta., picking up an assist in five games with Team Canada Red.

Due to government restrictions that were brought in to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, Allan didn’t have a clear roadmap on how the 2020-21 hockey campaign would unfold.

The alumnus of the Saskatoon Blazers Under-18 AAA Hockey Team started the 2020-21 season playing in the junior A ranks with the La Ronge Ice Wolves of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League via a loan agreement with the Raiders.

Allan had two goals and three assists in five games with the Ice Wolves before the SJHL campaign was put on ice late this past November due to increased government restrictions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

From that point, he spent much of his time training back home in Davidson to hopefully get ready for some sort of WHL campaign.

Eventually, the dust settled where the WHL was able to get back into action with divisional play with a shortened regular season held for developmental purposes.

Allan’s Raiders would join the WHL’s four other Saskatchewan representatives in the Moose Jaw Warriors, Regina Pats, Saskatoon Blades and Swift Current Broncos along with the two Manitoba clubs in the Brandon Wheat Kings and Winnipeg Ice in an East Division bubble.

Nolan Allan logged a lot of minutes on defence for the Raiders.
Each club in the East Division bubble would complete a 24-game regular season playing all contests at the Brandt Centre in Regina in the months of March and April. Teams would stay at the dorms at the University of Regina and Luther College, which is on the grounds of the U of R campus.

When the Raiders lost captain and star defenceman Kaiden Guhle to a season ending hand injury in their second contest and dealt with a number of other minor injuries throughout that campaign, Allan found himself logging a lot more minutes than he normally would have.

He focused on controlling the action in the defensive zone. Allan appeared in 16 games in the Regina bubble posting one goal, one assist and a minus-three rating before departing to play for Canada.

The Raiders finished fourth in the East Division with a 9-11-3-1 record.

With Canada’s under-18 team, Allan joined forces with two Regina bubble foes in Bedard, who had 12 goals, 16 assists and a plus nine rating in 15 games with the Regina Pats, and 16-year-old defenceman Denton Mateychuk, who had two goals, seven assists and a minus-eight rating in 16 games with the Moose Jaw Warriors.

In the seven games Canada played at the under-18 worlds in Frisco and Plano, Texas, Allan had a strong tournament anchoring the back end for Canada posting one goal, one assist and a plus-seven rating.

The hit on Chibrikov in the gold medal contest will go down as Allan’s signature play from that event.

As far as the number of games played goes, Allan’s season was nowhere as long as it would have normally been, but he got a tonne of quality experience in the contests he did play.

The experience he gained should serve him well in the future.

Canada West intends to return in 2021-22, other notes

The Huskies football team takes the field for a game in 2019.
The Canada West Conference will try to play a campaign in 2021-22.

The conference, which plays under the U Sports umbrella, had all member institutions affirm their commitment to return to play at a virtual Canada West annual general meeting held this past Tuesday and Wednesday. The Canada West Conference includes the University of Saskatchewan Huskies and University of Regina athletics programs.

Canada West wasn’t able to hold a season in 2020-21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has gripped the world. Government and individual university institutional restrictions in a lot of cases prevented programs from training together at various points in time.

Before the 2020-21 campaign was called off, Canada West was hoping to get its various sports back in action with modified regular seasons and possible post-season play.

The conference is once again looking at modified formats for the upcoming 2021-22 regular season, which will include a greater emphasis on regional play wherever possible.

In a release that was sent out on Wednesday, Canada West said the alternative formats may require further adjustments which will be addressed as permissions and approvals for return to competition are known.

The conference’s member programs will still need to receive permission to return to sport competition from their institutions and clearance from the health authorities in their respective provinces.

At the moment, the conference’s football league that contains six teams will each play six regular season games. The teams will play each other once along with one more additional game.

The top four teams advance to playoffs, where the semifinals and Hardy Cup conference championship game would be played like normal.

For the men’s and women’s hockey leagues that contain nine teams each, each team is slated to play a 20-game regular season. The top six teams advance to the post-season and the quarter-final, semifinal and championship rounds are slated to be played in best-of-three formats like they would in any normal campaign.

The Canada West release on the conference’s return to play plans can be found by clicking right here.

  • On Friday, Lacrosse Canada canceled nine of its 2021 national championships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The minor box lacrosse nationals for under-12, under-14 and under-17 boys and under-14 and under-17 girls have been cancelled. The Founders’ Cup Junior B National Championship has been cancelled. The field lacrosse nationals for under-15 boys, under-18 men’s and senior men’s were also cancelled.
  • I was in the pages of the Your Saskatoon News monthly publication with a story on star hockey playing sisters Sophie and Grace Shirley, who are both alums of the Saskatoon Stars Female Under-18 AAA Team. The Shirleys talked about their experiences this past season helping the University of Wisconsin Badgers women’s hockey team win a sixth NCAA title. The story on the Shirleys can be found by clicking right here.
  • Greg Harder is no longer the Regina Leader-Post’s beat writer that covers the WHL’s Regina Pats. Harder has been promoted to be that publication’s arts and features editor. Harder joined the Leader-Post sports department in 1998. He took on duties as the Pats beat writer before the start of the 2000-01 campaign. He performed those duties with great distinction. With the way the media is these days in Canada, it is unlikely the Leader-Post will replace Harder in the sports department. He was one of the few mainstream media outlet beat writers that was still on the WHL circuit. Long time Leader-Post sports scribe Rob Vanstone penned a tribute piece on Harder’s time in the Leader-Post sports department that can be found right here.
  • On Friday, paNOW.com ran a great story on one of the top behind the scenes guys on the WHL’s circuit in Prince Albert Raiders manager of team services Kim Jackson. Jackson fills numerous roles in the Raiders organization. The piece on Jackson written by Jeff D’Andrea can be found by clicking right here.
  • University of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s hockey team forward Collin Shirley is currently playing in the ECHL with the Allen Americans. He had a goal in his first five games. Shirley still has two seasons of eligibility left to use with the Huskies.
  • Prince Albert Raiders right-winger Ozzy Wiesblatt and Saskatoon Blades centre Tristen Robins are both with the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda now that the seasons of their respective WHL teams have come to an end.
  • Tickets are on sale for the May jackpot for the Saskatchewan Amateur Football Mega 50/50 lottery. The funds from this 50/50 lottery will go to support the CJFL’s Saskatoon Hilltops and Regina Thunder and the WWCFL’s Saskatoon Valkyries and Regina Riot. The draw date will be May 31. Tickets can be purchased by clicking right here, and purchasers must be in Saskatchewan in order to buy tickets.
  • On Thursday, the Medicine Hat Tigers finished their developmental WHL regular season falling 3-0 at home to the Edmonton Oil Kings at Co-Op Place. The Tigers hit the ice for 23 games posting a 14-8-0-1 record. With the season coming to a conclusion for the Tigers, Bob Ridley, who has been the franchises only play-by-play voice since the modern version of the team hit the ice in 1970-71, has called 4,021 of the clubs 4,022 games. Ridley’s total includes 3,589 of the 3,590 games the Tigers played in the regular season, one standings tiebreaker game, 411 games in the WHL playoffs and 20 contests in the Memorial Cup tournament. If you called 80 games a season for 50 seasons, you would still fall short of Ridley’s total for games called. Ridley has called the most games as the play-by-play voice of one hockey team at all levels of the sport.

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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