WHL NOTEBOOK: Fisher catches on with Silvertips

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This article was published 28/10/2024 (577 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Kaeson Fisher’s rousing welcome to the Western Hockey League moments came pretty quickly with the Everett Silvertips.

The five-foot-10, 152-pound defenceman from Brandon, who is in his rookie season, opened the campaign on Sept. 22 against the visiting Vancouver Giants at Angel of the Winds Arena.

“I think there were 7,000 people here,” Fisher said by phone on Monday afternoon. “I’m used to playing in front of a couple hundred. I stepped on the ice and there’s two bowls full of people. That was my pinch-me moment, stepping on the ice with all those people watching.

“We just had our Pink The Rink a couple of nights ago and that was pretty awesome. Seeing all the people who showed up for that, and then the jerseys we had to wear. It was cool. I’ve never had a jersey made for a special occasion on any team I’ve played on before.”

His journey to Everett actually began east of the Wheat City.

Fisher was born in Portage la Prairie but moved to Brandon with his family, which includes father Chad, mother Jacquie and siblings Brooks, Jaycee and Kellie, when he was three.

As a youngster, he played a bit of baseball and also golfed but hockey was his sport.

“It was a lot of standing around,” Fisher said of baseball. “Golf I got into but it isn’t much better than baseball for standing around purposes. I like the mental challenge of golf, you always have to stay sharp, which corresponds to hockey a little bit.”

He began as a forward and played goalie once, which turned out to be a win with a huge asterisk beside it because he chuckles that he almost let a goal in from centre ice.

He did, however, find life on the blue-line to his liking.

“Everything is in front of me,” Fisher said. “I can see everything that’s going on. I don’t really have my back turned to the play a lot, other than when I’m going back to get pucks.”

In his Western Hockey League draft year in 2022, Fisher broke his thumb and only suited up in 24 regular season games and 11 playoff games as the under-15 AAA Wheat Kings led by Cole Temple and Jaxon Jacobson — and including future WHLers Brady Turko, Easton Odut, Colten Worthington and Josh McGregor — won the city’s first provincial age group in the division.

Despite the injury, Fisher expected to be selected after he talked to a few teams, and they were right, with Everett grabbing him 124th pick overall.

“I was sitting in the car with my mom to pick up my siblings from school, and we were watching it on our phone and my name popped up,” Fisher said of the WHL draft. “She started yelling and screaming. It was pretty cool.”

He was subsequently taken in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s 16-year-old draft in 2023 by the Winkler Flyers in the fourth round with the 52nd overall pick.

LOTS OF WINNING

Since Everett doesn’t have a rookie camp, the youngster found himself at his first main camp the next fall skating alongside all-star defenceman Olen Zellweger.

“That was quite the welcome to camp,” Fisher said. “We were doing battle drills and stuff, and you would go into the corner against guys who have been in the league for four or five years and I’m a 130-pound 15-year-old. It’s pretty scary.”

Fisher didn’t earn a spot with Everett at age 16, so he came home to make history with the U18 Wheat Kings instead. They won their third championship in a row at the U15 or U18 level, and went an incredible 43-0-1-0 in the regular season.

He played with the same core group of the club since he was eight or nine, and the tightly bonded teammates shared incredible success since the pandemic.

“We won a lot of hockey games,” said Fisher, noting that at age 10 a team they assembled won six of the eight tournaments they entered. “Our second year U15, I think we lost one game that year, in Eastman, and lost one game in playoffs, and ended up winning the league. First year U18 it was the same group of guys, a little bit younger though, so it was a little bit to get used to and we didn’t do quite as well.

“Last year was probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing hockey. It was unbelievable.”

Brandon went 9-0 in the playoffs, and didn’t lose in regulation until a meaningless game in the round-robin of the western regionals when they fell 5-3 to the Thunder Bay Kings on April 6. That included a 1-0 overtime victory over the Saskatoon Blazers on a goal scored by Turko.

“That was probably the most intense hockey I’ve ever played,” Fisher said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a gold-medal game where it’s 0-0. That was the most nervous I’ve been in overtime.”

They subsequently went 4-3 at the Telus Cup, losing in the final to Cantonniers de Magog after losing Jacobson to injury early in the game.

That gave them a remarkable 59-4-1-0 record overall.

“Just coming to the rink, everybody was excited to be there,” Fisher said.

NEXT STEP

The next chapter of his hockey journey was making the jump to major junior, which wouldn’t be easy.

The Silvertips have a veteran blue-line with three National Hockey League draft picks — Kaden Hammell, Tarin Smith and Eric Jamieson — plus exceptional status player Landon DuPont. Fisher signed with Everett when they visited Brandon on Nov. 8, 2022, but even so, he was entering his 17-year-old season so there was some urgency to make the jump, because it’s a lot rarer at 18.

“Obviously there is pressure to make the team but going onto the ice, I just tried to play hockey, as cliche as that sounds,” Fisher said. “It’s obviously harder said than done, but I tried my best to play hockey and not worry about making a mistake or what the coaches were going to think about a mistake I made. Not everybody is going to play perfect, so you have to limit the mistakes and I just tried to be as calm as possible.”

It worked, since he earned a spot, but with seven defencemen on the roster he’s been a frequent healthy scratch. Fisher has played in just four games, but thankfully, one of them was Everett’s 4-1 victory over Brandon at Westoba Place on Oct. 8. That allowed him to skate against his former U18 buddies Jacobson, Odut and Turko.

“I used to go to Wheat Kings games when I was younger and it was always my dream to play on that ice in that situation,” Fisher said. “I finally got to do it. It was cool but a little weird seeing those guys in a different colour than I am. It was fun. We talked about it a little bit last year and had fun little jabs at each other.”

While he’s out of the lineup a lot, Fisher is focusing on getting better anyway. Whether that’s in practice or watching games, he said there is a hockey education available.

“It’s a tough D-corps to stay in all the time so I’m learning from the older guys and talking in everything I can, and when I do get into games, and I’m trying to make the most of it,” Fisher said. “

The strength of Fisher’s game is seeing the ice and sometimes making an unexpected first pass. While the simple break-out pass to the winger standing on the half wall is what’s expected, finding the open man on the weak side can allow the play to bypass the forecheck and create odd-man rushes.

But it’s also more difficult because the players are so much better.

It’s hard to overestimate the transition from U18 to major junior for most players, which Fisher said can be daunting.

“Guys protecting the puck, it’s way different than any other level I’m used to playing at,” Fisher said. “Guys are 20 years old and fully developed so that’s probably the biggest thing I’ve noticed. Guys are a lot stronger.”

There’s also plenty of new things to get accustomed to off the ice.

He lives about a 25-minute drive from the rink, which can easily be stretched to 35 or 40 minutes when busy Highway I-5 is clogged. He got a taste of being billeted out when he was there for the pre-season in 2023, and said it’s gone smoothly this time. But he admits it’s still a giant life step.

“Obviously being 23 hours away from home is not amazing to think about but you just try to make the best of it,” Fisher said. “I miss home a little bit some days, but thinking about why you’re here and the opportunity you’re given, kind of eases my mind a little bit.

“We’re pretty busy here so I don’t really have a lot of time to sit around and think about stuff.”

He chats with his parents every day, which has helped.

He also has one other reminder of home, 19-year-old Nolan Chastko, another Brandonite in his rookie season with the club.

“It’s pretty nice having another Brandon guy on the team,” Fisher said. “It’s pretty cool.”

Since he’s in Grade 12, he’s also juggling school work with everything else. That includes sessions with the teammates who are also in school before practice.

“You do the extra stuff when you have free time at home,” Fisher said. “We’re out of here by mid-afternoon every day usually. It’s been a pretty good routine.”

Of course that was complicated by the road trip to meet the East Division clubs early in the season, but he added that included a study hall in Brandon the day they arrived.

THIS AND THAT

• QUIZ — The WHL draft began in 1990. How many times have the Wheat Kings had three picks in the first round? How many times have they had no picks in the first round?

• WEEKLY AWARDS — The player of the week is 17-year-old Kamloops Blazers forward Nathan Behm of Calgary, who had four goals, six assists and a +6 rating in three games.

The goaltender of the week is 18-year-old Everett Silvertips netminder Jesse Sanche of Kamloops, B.C., who win his four starts while posting a 1.43 goals-against average, a .938 save percentage and his first WHL shutout.

The rookie of the week is 15-year-old Wheat Kings forward Jaxon Jacobson, who had two goals and an assist with a +5 rating in two games on the weekend. He turns 16 in December.

• SIN BIN — Everett Silvertips forward Andrew Petruk was handed a one-game suspension for a slew footing major and game misconduct he took against the Wenatchee Wild on Saturday.

The league still only has six suspensions listed so far, which is a remarkably good start to the season in the discipline department. Last season, there were 22 fines or suspensions before Nov. 1.

• TRADE FRONT — The only deal last week saw the Regina Pats send 19-year-old forward Sam Oremba to the Spokane Chiefs on Thursday for a fourth-round pick in 2025 and a second-round pick in 2026.

• ALUMNI GLANCE — Jayden Wiens is off to a quick start at Mount Royal University in Calgary, where the 21-year-old forward has a goal and seven assists in eight games. A product of Carrot River, Sask., the heart-and-soul player had 25 goals and 19 assists in 67 games with the Wheat Kings during the 2023-24 season despite playing with a bad shoulder all season. He was acquired from the Saskatoon Blades, where he spent his first three seasons, for a third-round pick in 2025 and a fourth-round pick in 2027 on Sept. 20, 2023.

• BIRTHDAY BOYS — Celebrating this week are Taylor Cooper (Nov. 1, 1995), Ted Fleury (Oct. 28, 1970), Ray Fraser (Nov. 3, 1980), Dan Hart (Nov. 4, 1965), Terry Menard (Oct. 30, 1967), Kevin Scott (Nov. 3, 1967) and Paul Sutcliffe (Nov. 4, 1969).

• THE WEEK AHEAD — Brandon plays just once next week when they host the Medicine Hat Tigers on Saturday to end their five-game home stand.

• ANSWER — Brandon has picked three times in the first round three times.

In 2021, they grabbed Charlie Elick (3), Roger McQueen (4) and Caleb Hadland (22) In 2019, they took Nate Danielson (5), Tyson Zimmer (6) and Rylen Roersma (16).

In 1992, they selected Wade Redden (2), Justin Kurtz (6) and Joel Korenko (7).

They were without a pick just once, in 2010 when they picked up Travis Hamonic from the Moose Jaw Warriors when they were hosting the Memorial Cup. For the record, Moose Jaw used the pick to select forward Torrin White, who played 260 regular season and playoff games in the WHL with 111 points for the Warriors. He is the older brother of former Wheat King Jaeger White.