If you boiled down junior hockey to its very broadest description, you’d get reminded that, fundamentally, everyone from the players to the coaches to the announcers are in the entertainment business. And if that’s the case, boy are the Brandon Wheat Kings good businessmen.
This Wheat Kings’ season has been a lot of things. Strange tops the list in many ways (strange, weird, or some other word in that vein has come up in interviews many times), in some ways it’s been frustrating (more on that in moment), and in some ways it’s been a joy to watch. What it has never, ever been is boring.
Entertaining is probably the first word I’d use to describe this season’s on-ice product. If you’re on the fence about buying tickets to a Wheat Kings’ game, just know that whether you want to see drama, goals, physicality, or controversy, you will almost always get your money’s worth.
As much as I love entertaining hockey, however, the idea that they’re putting on a good show is not the first consideration for the Wheat Kings’ players and staff. They’ve got hockey games to win. And while they’ve been better at winning lately (they’d won seven of their last ten entering play against the Red Deer Rebels on November 11) they’re still hovering around the very fringes of a playoff picture they’d been expected to lead the way in.
If anyone remembers how the Prince Albert Raiders started last season before winning the division title (and yes, that one still stings) they were off to a far worse start than these Wheat Kings. By November 14 of last year, the Raiders had just started to turn things around but were only 6-8-2. Heck, the eventual champion Medicine Hat Tigers were a fairly pedestrian 11-9-0 to that point. The Wheat Kings are by no means out of time to right the ship.
Time, of course, matters only as much as how you use it. As ever, the work continues.
- The Wheat Kings needed to make a move on defense and they may have pulled a rabbit out of their hat with Daniil Skvortsov. I know a lot of fans want to see the Wheat Kings make a big splash trade wise (acquiring Skvortsov, to be clear, does not prevent this) but if I told you a 2007-born 6-foot-4 defenseman who skates well, plays with an edge, and was ranked in the top-80 on NHL Central Scouting’s mid-term ranking last year was available via trade, you’d assume (especially this season) that the price would be astronomical. As it is, the Wheat Kings collected him from Guelph without losing a single asset. It’s too early in his Wheat Kings career to make a judgement on him yet (he hasn’t even had a full week of practice with the team for goodness sake) but early signs are beyond promising. He works hard, skates well, isn’t afraid to make someone’s life difficult in the corners, and brings a friendly, upbeat attitude off the ice that’s allowed him to fit in quickly with his new teammates. Picking players up on Import Waivers has worked well in the past for other teams too. Prince Albert got a solid, reliable presence in Vojtech Vochvest last season. Regina is getting solid minutes and good production out of Ruslan Karimov. And just how happy do you think Lethbridge was with Leo Braillard by the end of his tenure there? Sometimes a player needs a change of scenery to hit that second gear. Once he fully settles in, expect Skvortsov to look like a steal.
- It’s now almost a matter of routine for Caleb Hadland to start every game off with a big hit. Most recently, it was Ty Coupland on the receiving end of a crushing bodycheck from Hadland in the loss to Red Deer on November 11, and I was more than a little surprised Coupland returned to the game. He looked badly shaken up after Hadland caught him with his head down coming around the Wheat Kings’ net. I’ve called games for some exceptional bodycheckers in my career. The Estevan Bruins teams I worked with in the SJHL were always well-populated with heavy hitters (Austin King-Cunningham, Tylor Ludwar, Turner Ripplinger, and Devan Harrison are the first ones who come to mind) and in Prince Albert I called games for Kaiden Guhle and Nolan Allan, both of whom hit like trucks. Eric Johnston in Prince Albert was an underrated menace in this regard. Charlie Elick with the Wheat Kings threw some of the most highlight reel-worthy hits I’ve ever called, and for pure explosiveness in his hits not many guys anywhere have matched Brett Hyland. But allowing for a number of factors, I’m starting to think Caleb Hadland might be the best bodychecker I’ve ever worked with. It’s not just how hard he hits (though he’s got that covered) it’s that he hits cleanly, effectively, and frequently. Of all the guys I mentioned, he might be the only guy who goes through one Richter-scale hit per game like clockwork. His bodycheck on William Morin in Swift Current last year remains one of the hardest I’ve ever called, but it never seems like it will be very long until Hadland breaks his own (very unofficial) record. I’ve got a huge nostalgic soft spot for the heavy hitters, partially because I tried to be one when I played with wildly varying degrees of success (I was certainly a better hitter than a scorer but, well, that’s a low bar), partially because I loved those kinds of players growing up, and partially because I think bodychecking is both underappreciated as a skill and integral to hockey’s unique identity as a sport. So when a guy throws as many big hits as Hadland has during my time with the Wheat Kings, you just bet I’m going to notice. If pressed, I’d probably still put him just behind Guhle on the list of best hitters I’ve worked with, but not far behind, and at the rate he’s going, the Wheat Kings’ captain is going to catch up.
- If you took a shot for every time I’ve used some variation of the words “find another gear” with Joby Baumuller… well, let’s just say please don’t actually do this. But I’ve used that terminology with Joby a lot and this season has been one long string of him finding that gear. He’s powering his way to the net, scoring from the dirty areas, using his heavy shot to great effect, and is now the second leading goal scorer on the Wheat Kings (tied with Chase Surkan) following his hat trick against Red Deer. He’s second on the Wheat Kings in shots as well. Over a point-per-game for the first time in his career and on pace to absolutely shatter his (already respectable) totals of last season, Baumuller can’t be called a pleasant surprise because I don’t think his rise is surprising but even allowing for the expectations that fall on a player for being the 12th overall pick, Baumuller has been highly impressive this season.
- Speaking of hat tricks, what on earth is in the water at ACU place this season? The Wheat Kings have had five hat tricks on home ice alone this season, with Luke Mistelbacher contributing one on the road to boot, and they’ve already more than doubled the hat tricks they had in 2024-25. In fact, the six hat tricks they’ve amassed this season is more than the five they had the previous three seasons combined. It’s an absolutely insane stat when you think about it, and even at my most optimistic I didn’t think the Wheat Kings would be firing at a rate of a hat trick every three games. If you’re wondering, they have three more games to get another one to keep that absurd pace up.
- So everything has been rosy so far in this blog. A new defenseman is fitting in well and looks like the kind of pickup you’d normally pay an arm, leg, and firstborn for in the trade market. The captain is playing like a captain, setting career highs in every category at the rate he’s going and hitting like a wrecking ball on skates. A promising young forward is living up to the promise and more. And we haven’t even mentioned that Jaxon Jacobson has a legitimate chance to lead the league in points and Luke Mistelbacher has a legitimate chance to lead in goals. So… what’s the issue? Why is the team below .500 and, even allowing for games in hand, a long way from a home playoff spot? Well, that’s the frustrating part. The team feels like they’ve gotten closer and closer to a breakthrough, and they’re in a much, much better place than they were at the start of the season. And yet, there is still more work left to do. The loss to Red Deer saw some new issues creep in that hadn’t previously been present; they had a fantastic third period against Medicine Hat and won the game there on the strength of it, but lost the game in a comparatively weak third period against the Rebels. They overwhelmed Red Deer in the first period, outshooting them 16-4, but couldn’t get out of the period on top and never quite found that gear again. It’s the nature of junior hockey that things will be up and down, and as long as the arrow generally points up from the start of the season to the end, you’ll probably have a pretty good season. Generally, the Wheat Kings’ arrow has been pointing up for some time. But there’s still improvements needed. The team only has one win in five tries against the top-five teams in the Eastern Conference right now, and they’ve yet to see any of the top-four teams out West. Saturday night against Medicine Hat will be a tough test as the Tigers’ sit fourth in the conference by points percentage. But if the Wheat Kings can pass that test on the road, they should be able to muster up a strong effort to defend home ice and move back to .500 on the season.
- Ending on a positive note, however, I know the Wheat Kings are in what they view as a major window to win being driven largely (though certainly not exclusively) by their 2005 and 2006-born players, and I know they see another window opening led by the 2008-born players. What they might not have foreseen at the time but looks increasingly evident every day is the window their 2009-born players are opening. I’ve used every superlative in the book for Chase Surkan already, and as Marty Murray said in our last conversation about him, we’re past the point of it being a fluke that he’s producing points. But in his absence, two more 2009-born Wheat Kings shone brightly. Carson Ralph picked up his first WHL point in Medicine Hat on a critical third-period goal and looks like the kind of find every successful team needs outside of their draft picks in order to win. And I don’t know when exactly the switch flipped on Prabh Bhathal, but it most certainly flipped. He’s been collecting assists consistently of late, and has been getting mixed up in scrums and freeing pucks up below the circles, forcing turnovers and being hard to knock off the puck. He looks to be developing into a power forward role and it’s still very early in his development yet. And one more 2009-born player, one that isn’t with the Wheat Kings right now but one who absolutely needs, no, demands to be mentioned, is defenseman Ethan Young. I think sending Young back to AAA was the best thing for his development, in spite of his excellent camp and preseason, and boy has he ever developed. It’s almost at the point where I wonder if the notoriously tough Saskatchewan U18 AAA league might be too easy for him. With 33 points in 17 games, Young is leading the entire Sask AAA league in scoring as a defenseman. Offense, as you may recall from his preseason, is arguably not even the principle selling point of his game. Do the Wheat Kings have another steal on their hands here? It sure looks that way.
While not long in terms of bullet points, this is one of the longer winded blogs I’ve had (and that’s saying something) so I will wrap it up relatively efficiently. It’s been a strange season so far, but it’s never lacked for entertainment value. One wonders what the storylines will be through the next week, in which the Wheat Kings will play four games in eight days, three of them on the road and three against top-five ranked teams as well.
It will be my privilege to share them with you, whatever they are.
