MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM -- The time the Moose Jaw Warriors have been waiting for since finishing up the Memorial Cup last spring is just about here.
The Warriors are less than 24 hours away from opening the 2024-25 Western Hockey League season, as they travel to Brandon to face the Wheat Kings on Friday night before hosting the Prince Albert Raiders in what promises to be a very special home opener on Saturday.
It all comes at the end of a busy pre-season for the local squad, with head coach Mark O’Leary happy with the strides he’s seen from the team as they prepare to defend their WHL championship.
“You can feel the excitement, it’s been growing all week long,” O’Leary said. “You get that way every year when you get back into town and work on some things, and at the end of the day we do that so we can play games that count. I know the players have put the work in, they’re prepared, they should feel confident they’re prepared and now they just have to go out and execute.”
The Warriors didn’t have the most successful of exhibition campaigns, posting a 1-3 record in four games, but it was the last one -- a 4-2 win over Swift Current in their lone game at the Moose Jaw Events Centre -- that gave the team a boost heading into this weekend.
“You study for the test and now you just have to fill out the right answers, that’s all there is to it,” O’Leary said. “We know we don’t need to be playing our very best hockey in September, but we want to be better this week than last week and continue to build from there.”
The Warriors received some good news on Wednesday as forward RIlen Kovacevic was returned to the team by the Colorado Avalanche. Following his arrival back in Moose Jaw, the team promptly named Kovacevic and fellow overage forward Brayden Schuurman as assistant captains.
The team is still without forward Brayden Yager (Pittsburgh), defenceman Voytech Port (Anaheim) and defenceman Kalem Parker (Minnesota) as all have moved from rookie camp on to main camp.
That means the line-up will be a little chaotic for now, something the Warriors were expecting given how early it still is in the season. Fortunately, the pre-season helped clarify things, and even with the middling success, some questions were answered.
“There are so many moving parts in pre-season and when you’re constructing line-ups for who is going to play and who’s not, who’s going to start in net and who’s not, none of those decisions have anything to do with wins and loses and everything to do with seeing guys in certain situations and development and evaluation,” O’Leary said.
“Through all that eventually one team has to win, and even though it isn’t easy to lose a game, it doesn’t really matter and the biggest thing is we played well the fourth game and that’s the most important thing.”
Now the attention turns to the games that matter. First up are the Wheat Kings, who themselves are looking toward a solid season after slotting in at second spot in the first-ever edition of SportsCage.com’s WHL Eastern Conference Power Rankings.
“They have lots of guys returning and they’ll be missing some key players, but even without those guys they’re certainly pretty deep,” O’Leary said. “Until we see all these teams we don’t know exactly what they look like, but watching some of their exhibition games, they have some guys who have been in the league long enough and know how to play. They have to be one of the favourites in our division, so we look forward to the challenge.”
From there, it’s on to Saturday night, where the Warriors will raise their first-ever WHL Championship banner to the ceiling in what promises to be an emotional pre-game ceremony.
“Can’t wait for that, it’ll be a lot of fun,” O’Leary said. “The players deserve it and the fans deserve it, it’ll be fun to see the excitement and relive that special run one more time.”
Puck drop on Saturday is 7 p.m at the Moose Jaw Events Centre, but be sure to get there early as a full house is expected.
