Gibson, Miners continue to celebrate first championship

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This article was published 06/05/2022 (1400 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tyler Gibson had yet to experience the joys that come with winning a championship until last Saturday night.

That changed for the 19-year-old defenceman from Neepawa last Saturday night as he helped the Red Lake Miners win their first Superior International Junior Hockey League championship in six games over the Kam River Fighting Walleye.

“It was a crazy night,” Gibson said. “I remember seeing the score staying at 3-2 for quite a while there in the third and we were all trying to do our job to make sure that it didn’t go to overtime.

“Once the final buzzer went, everyone started celebrating in the building and it honestly didn’t feel real at first. There are still times when I can’t comprehend what happened, but when I see the hat in my room that says SIJHL champions … it reminds me that we did something special here.”

Gibson’s road to Red Lake — a community of a little over 4,000 people that’s a three-hour drive from Kenora and a little over seven hours from his hometown — started a couple of years ago.

Following two seasons with the Neepawa Tigers high school hockey program, Gibson decided that he wanted to play in the Manitoba AAA Under-18 Hockey League for the 2019-20 campaign, mainly so that he could have the chance of playing junior hockey.

After trying out for the Yellowhead Chiefs, he eventually earned a spot on the Central Plains Capitals in Portage la Prairie and had nine points (three goals and six assists) in 48 games.

“That year with Central Plains did so much for me,” Gibson said. “I think my time there definitely played a huge part in me coming to the Miners. I would have never gotten a look if I stayed playing high school hockey.”

After the COVID-19 pandemic limited Gibson to just a pair of games with the Miners in 2020-21 before the SIJHL season was cancelled, he got the full junior hockey experience this year.

He was second in defensive scoring on the team with 17 assists in 36 regular season games and dished out five helpers in 12 post-season contests.

“I can’t say enough about Tyler,” Miners head coach and general manager Geoff Walker said. “The strides that he’s made from coming here for training camp and becoming one of our top defencemen and transitioning into a leadership role for us has been incredible to watch.

“He’s become a very important piece for our team. He’s consistently in our top two pairings and he’s on the penalty kill, so he’s frequently assigned to face the best players on the other team. He also throws some massive hits and he’s got a real good timing and knack to light guys up.”

While he considers himself to be a shutdown defenceman, Gibson has been pleased by the strides he’s made in his playmaking ability and his offensive capabilities.

“This has been the most points I’ve put up in a long time and to do that in junior hockey is pretty cool,” Gibson said.

“It’s a lot different here than in midget, especially with the fact that we are on the ice and in the gym almost every single day. As a result, I feel that’s allowed me to get even better as the year went on.”

While the Miners entered the playoffs with the second overall seed in the league after posting a 28-6-2-1 record, they had to overcome some hurdles along the way.

Almost all junior hockey in Ontario was halted due to concerns surrounding the omicron variant of COVID-19, which led to the team not playing a single game from Dec. 15 to Feb. 11.

During that time, the Miners also lost the use of their home rink (the Cochenour Arena) due to an ammonia leak within the ice plant chiller, which resulted in the team making an hour drive to Ear Falls for practices.

Then to top it all off, the program found out that they wouldn’t be hosting the Dudley Hewitt Cup (a regional tournament that features teams from the SIJHL, Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League and Ontario Junior Hockey League) as a result of Hockey Canada bringing the winners of all nine leagues in the Canadian Junior Hockey League to the Centennial Cup.

Despite all of those challenges, Walker and Gibson both believe that made the Miners even stronger and eventually led to them beating the Dryden Ice Dogs and Fighting Walleye in a pair of six-game series.

“Some of the things that we went through would have honestly caused most teams to just crumble,” Walker said. “With the leadership that’s here, it made the guys even closer and they had a mindset where they knew that they were going to get things done.”

“Once we came back from that break in February, I think we were honestly better than ever and we had all bought into the common goal of winning a championship,” Gibson added.

“I think another thing that helped us is the fact that we’re a big family here. There are no cliques … when something’s going on like the Stanley Cup playoffs, we’re all going to a house to watch the games together.”

The next big test for the Miners is the Centennial Cup, which runs from May 19 to 29 in Estevan.

This marks the first time that a team from the SIJHL has competed at the tournament since 2013, when the Minnesota Wilderness reached the semifinal round but lost in overtime to the eventual champion Brooks Bandits.

While the Miners will be entering the tournament as an underdog — especially as they are in the same pool as the host Bruins and the champions from the Alberta Junior Hockey League, the OJHL and the Quebec Junior Hockey League — Gibson and his teammates are eager to show the rest of the country what the Miners and the SIJHL are all about.

“I believe that the SIJHL is a real sleeper league,” Gibson said. “There’s a lot of very good players here and I think us and Kam River (who were the top two teams in the regular season) could go head-to-head with most teams in the MJHL (Manitoba Junior Hockey League).

“We know that we are going to be facing some very good teams in Estevan but if we stick to our game, bury our heads down and continue to work our butts off, I think we can turn some heads.”

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