U17 Wheat Kings hope to roll in playoffs

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This article was published 26/02/2025 (255 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The next chapter began Wednesday night for the Brandon Wheat Kings as they entered the U17 AAA Winnipeg Hockey League post-season.

Brandon finished the regular season in second place with 30 wins, three losses and two ties this season, with all three losses coming at the hands of the first-place Winnipeg Bruins.

The Wheat Kings are led by captain Maden Simard, who won the league’s scoring race as a defenceman with 64 points. He was tied for 13th with 15 goals and contributed a league-high 49 helpers.

“We know we have a good squad going into playoffs,” Simard said. “We’re a hard-working team and everyone wants to win. We’re expecting to make it far and hopefully get the win this year.”

Brandon’s best-of-five quarterfinal series with the seventh-place Interlake Lightning (7-23-5) opened last night in a game that ended after deadline at J&G Homes Arena. Game 2 is at Enns Brothers Arena on Friday at 8 p.m., and Game 3 is at Stonewall’s Veterans Memorial Sports Complex on Sunday at 5 p.m.

If needed, Game 4 is at Warren Arena on Tuesday at 7 p.m., and a potential Game 5 would be back at J&G Homes Arena on Thursday at 6 p.m.

“They’re pretty physical,” forward Ethen Church said of Interlake. “They’ve got a lot of bigger guys and aren’t afraid to run around. They can have a hot goalie too.”

Head coach Darcy Simard, who is joined on the bench by assistant coach Chris Sitko and trainer Drayson Cowan with Antonio Hermenegildo serving as manager‚ said the Lightning will be a good test.

“They’re a big team and they clog up the middle of the ice,” Darcy Simard said. “They’re opportunists so they look for teams to make mistakes and then pounce on them. They have a couple of really good goalies as well. The league has really strong goalies so we’re going to have to do the little things around the net and take away their vision and score a lot of goals.”

During the regular season, Brandon beat Interlake 4-1 on Oct. 19, 2-0 on Oct. 25, 7-3 on Dec. 20, 4-2 on Jan. 24 and 7-1 on Feb. 16.

The semifinals are also best-of-five, with the final decided in a seven-game series.

To win in the playoffs, they’ll want to follow the formula they established all season. Simply put, Brandon’s success begins in their own end and radiates out.

The Wheat Kings, who allowed a league-low of 53 goals in 35 games for an average of 1.51 per game, have a strong tandem in net, with Sawyer Wallin (16gp, 1.36 goals-against average, .942 save percentage) and Western Hockey League Wheat Kings prospect Urijah Moosetail (19gp, 1.52 goals-against average, .937 save percentage). Each posted four shutouts.

“They’ve been real solid for us this year,” Church said. “They’ve saved a game for us a few times and kept us in it quite a bit.”

Maden Simard said having the duo behind them helps everyone to relax, noting team defence is important to the entire roster.

“They’ve been great this year,” Maden Simard said. “We’re solid on the back end and keep a lot of pucks out of our net. That’s something we take pride in. We have more confidence knowing that we have two good goalies in our net like that.”

Along with Maden Simard, the blue-line includes Gavyn Yon, Karter Hermenegildo, Ty Cowan, Nolan Peterson and Brett Jackson.

“Every one of our D plays a different style but they bought in a system that works,” Darcy Simard said. “The great thing about our D is that we can put any pairing out, we can change them up and they work really well together. They’re really solid defensively, they block a lot of shots, they defend well in our own end, and when we get into the offensive zone we’re able to generate a lot of offence and create a lot of shots.

“They move the puck so well, they all have great vision and they do the little things at both ends.”

Brandon scored 145 goals for an average of 4.14 per game, which was second behind the Bruins’ 189.

Along with Church, the other forwards are Matthew Dupuis, Ty Aldcroft, Owen Stanley, Emytt Pearce, Kendrick Breemersch, Denzel Monias, Max Roberts, Ashton Shields, Soren Milne, Benjamin Sveistrup and Luke Krieser.

“It’s an outstanding four lines,” Darcy Simard said. “Everyone has something different to bring to the table and it seems to work. Early on we talked about how we’re going to have to establish an identity in the league this year. We’re hard-working, we’re aggressive, we forecheck like crazy.

“We have a mixture of grit and defensive forwards and guys who can put the puck in the net. We’re really good down low on the cycle and a lot of offence comes from down low and then up to the D and then onto the net.”

Besides Simard, the only other Wheat King in the top 10 in scoring was Church (34 games played, 18 goals, 27 assists, 45 points) but Breemersch (34gp, 26g, 11a, 37p), Stanley (33gp, 12g, 24a, 36p) and Dupuis (35gp, 18g, 16a, 34p) were all in the top 20.

That puts a premium on spreading out the offence, and 15 players had at least 10 points.

“Our forwards are real hard workers,” Church said. “We’re not the most skilled team but we all work really hard.”

Darcy Simard sees it the same way. He said this year’s U17 club simply wills its way to victory.

“They play well together,” Darcy Simard said. “They’re a good group of kids and they all bought into the system really early. We have a phenomenal team culture, which is huge. The boys really brought into the aggressive system that Chris and I put in place and they’re great listeners. They work extremely hard at all times.”

If they can get through the first two series — and they certainly have some work to do to accomplish that feat — they’ll likely have an 800-pound gorilla waiting for them in the final.

The Bruins, who had 32 wins and three ties this season, beat the Wheat Kings 5-2 on Oct. 20, 6-3 on Nov. 17 and 4-0 on Feb. 2, the only games Brandon gave up more than three goals all season. The teams tied 2-2 on Dec. 14.

“They’re pretty good,” Church said. “They’re real skilled.”

But that doesn’t mean that if the Wheat Kings get that far, they’re conceding a thing.

“They have lots of skill but we’ve played them a couple of times and we know we can beat them,” Maden Simard said. “We have a lot bigger team and a lot of different guys who are good all-around. I think we’ll be able to come out on top in a seven-game series.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

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