Will the New Year ring in a return for the Cru?

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Considering what a trying time period 2020 has been, it is only natural that folks look towards 2021 with a level of trepidation as well.

Which is why there seems to be a gigantic “if” floating around the room when it comes to talking about the Sherwood Park Crusaders and the short-term future of the Alberta Junior Hockey League at the moment.

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The AJHL went into a pandemic pause last Wednesday night, opting to shutter the season until at least Dec. 19, when they will reassess their position with Alberta Health with the hopes of returning in the New Year, “if” possible in light of the troubling rapid spread of COVID-19 in the province.

Which is likely why Crusaders head coach Adam Manah treated the current pause a little like the end of the season when it came to having individual meetings with players to discuss their progress and what they need to do going forward, something he was unable to do last March when the sudden sports stoppage ended his team’s dreams of going after their first-ever AJHL crown and maybe even a national title in the wake of a franchise record 49-9-0 season.

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“We wanted to make sure we did formal exit meetings this time around because last year when everything went down we didn’t even have an opportunity to really close out the year,” Manah said. “We are not saying that we are closing out this year by any means, but we wanted to at least give the players some feedback and make sure they knew where they were at, where they stand, and where they have to head to over this break moving forward, depending on if it is a month or even longer. We’ll prepare like it is a month and hopefully, we are back after New Year’s.”

Manah admitted it was tough to break the news to his Sherwood squad at a meeting last Thursday, one day before they were set to play just their fifth regular season contest of the season against the Whitecourt Wolverines, trying to bounce back after a somewhat bewildering 0-3-1 start to the campaign, coming on the heels of a strong 8-2-0 pre-season run.

“We had our president and ownership group stop by the rink with the coaching staff and we wanted to make sure the message was relayed to the players and that everybody was on board and that they knew what had been said on the AJHL board call,” Manah said. “Everything is pretty black and white; we are shut down until at least mid-December when the government comes back and makes a decision and we’ll see if our league gets an exemption for us to start up again after Christmas.

“It was tough for the players. Especially in the world we are living in right now, hockey is their escape. It is normally anyway, but especially right now because it is tough when there isn’t a whole lot else to do with the curfews and restrictions and everything else. When you come to the rink, that’s when the guys are at their happiest. It’s tough on all of us. We were not off to the start that we wanted to get off to after the pre-season, but the guys were bound and determined to continue to work hard and were excited to play Whitecourt last weekend before things got shut down again. But it is the hand we’ve been dealt and we’ll just have to take it in stride and prepare like we are coming back in January.”

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The AJHL really had no choice but to initiate the pandemic pause. They had been allowed to continue playing when other sports squads were shut down a couple of weeks previous, but COVID cases were starting to creep in on several rosters around the league, although none were reported amongst the Park players.

“Looking through this whole process, every week feels like its own individual month,” AJHL commissioner Ryan Bartoshyk told Postmedia Network. “We’ve been able to navigate since Sept. 1 with the start of our development season and, fortunately enough, we were able to move onto some competition and play hockey in its intended fashion.

“So, I’m very grateful with where we got and it was definitely a privilege to be playing, and that’s what I communicated to our league, our athletes, and our coaches. But, obviously, at this point, we’ve got to respect the guidelines and take a pause for a bit.

“We had some individual cases pop up within our teams, similarly to what’s happening in Red Deer with the World Juniors where there are protocols in place and quarantines,” Bartoshyk added. “That’s why we had those protocols and guidelines in place since Day 1.

“We respect all the guidelines and we’ll re-evaluate where we’re at in three weeks here. We need to be proactive if we’re allowed to play again, we’re ready to do so.”

Manah said that in some ways the Crusaders were lucky to have gotten as much time together as they did before another lockdown occurred.

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“Even when we started back in August, we were pretty fortunate to be on the ice as long as we have been. It’s just too bad because things have been going pretty well, for the most part, for the league,” he said.

“It’s just unfortunate that now we’ve got to be on pause and everybody’s got to take a breather, because from a coaching perspective, we put in a lot of time with the guys, and now the break is going to basically put us back at reset when we get back, hopefully, after New Year’s.”

Even “if” the AJHL returns that soon, the Crusaders have another “if” in whether or not they will retain the services of the four players they have had on loan from the idle Western Hockey League until Dec. 20.

It has been a pretty fearsome foursome — including Dylan Guenther, the first overall pick in the 2018 WHL Bantam Draft and potential high first round selection in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft who is on loan from the Edmonton Oil Kings, and Matt Savoie, the first overall pick in the 2019 WHL Bantam Draft and another potential high selection in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, who is on loan from the Winnipeg Ice.

Also with the team are fellow forwards Kyle Crnkovic (Saskatoon Blades) and Nick Bowman (Tri-City Americans).

“We’re preparing like they will be back in the Western Hockey League in early January. That is when they said they would be starting up,” Manah said. “If we are able to start up then, we imagine they will as well unless there are some other logistical problems which get in the way for them. As of right now, we are planning on moving forward without those players, but if something does go sideways for the WHL and they are not allowed to have fans or whatever it might be, those guys know where they are at with us and that we would welcome them back with open arms and that they are all big components with our hockey team. As much as we would like to have them back and hope they could remain because they have all been good additions, we also know that they do have their other teams.”

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It may be easier to operate a provincial entity like the AJHL in a pandemic environment than the WHL, which has teams spread across four provinces and into the United States, especially with the border to our neighboring nation remaining firmly closed. Which leads to the uncertainty.

If they are gone, Manah said it was still worth having them around, even for such a short time.

“Every team in the league is going through this. It was almost like signing guys to a short-term contract,” he said. “Every team has been handcuffed in one way or another by the COVID situation, and perhaps us more than most because of all the American kids we had hoped to have with us but couldn’t get over the border. We wanted to give our WHL guys a place to play and hopefully, they have developed and gotten better during their times with us. If we can move them back to their WHL teams in a better spot than they were then we have done our job and we will continue to move forward with the guys on our team.

“It is another feather in our cap that we had a couple of guys (Guenther and Savoie) who could go as high as they will in the NHL draft. It is something we will be able to hang our hats on and say that those two guys played in our organization and that they chose to play in Sherwood Park. It is something we can be proud of, for sure.”

The Cru have had quite a run for a team at the Junior A level with three players getting drafted to the big league in the last two years — goalie Carter Gylander going in the seventh round to the Detroit Red Wings in the 2019 NHL Draft and defenceman Michael Benning (fourth round to the Florida Panthers) and forward Carter Savoie (fourth round to the Edmonton Oilers) selected in the recent 2020 NHL Draft.

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The future of one player from the Crusaders roster is no longer in doubt, however, as the lone American player who was still with the squad, Illinois native Jacob Jonkman, was released at the time of the shutdown, eventually latching on with the La Ronge Ice Wolves of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League.

“We released Jacob, but we let La Ronge know about him and they decided to give him a look and he decided to go over there rather than returning home to the U.S. at this point,” Manah said. “We wanted to give him an opportunity to play somewhere higher up in a lineup as a 19-year-old. We could have kept him as a depth guy, but for him to play in our bottom six and be in and out of the lineup, that didn’t make sense at his age. He is a good kid who deserves to play up in the lineup and he will get that opportunity in Saskatchewan.”

The Cru coach said all the remaining players can do at the moment is stay ready for the hoped-for return call to arms.

“The good thing is it’s maybe better than the first lockdown because the gyms are still open, guys can get one-on-one training,” Manah said. “So, it’s maybe not a blessing in disguise, but for our guys, at least they can still have that component where they can do their thing off the ice and I believe they can continue to do one-on-one training on the ice.

“We’re trying to take the positives and the silver lining out of it and hopefully guys can make sure they stay as ready as possible for when we do return, whenever that time comes.”

sjones@postmedia.com

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