WHL NOTEBOOK: Davidson quickly rebuilds Hitmen

On the day the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame named its class of 2026, one of its past inductees continues to find success in another sport.

Garry Davidson, who grew up in Virden and Souris and now serves as the general manager of the Western Hockey League’s Calgary Hitmen, was a member of the Souris Juvenile Cardinals squad that won provincial and western Canadian titles in 1967.

They were inducted in 2014.

“It was really neat,” Davidson said of the Hall of Fame honour. “I played some high school football in Souris as well back in the day, but baseball has always been my second go-to game. It works really well with hockey.

“You shed yourself of one game for a few months and get excited about the other game. I was fortunate to be on a winning team there in Souris. I believe I was the youngest guy on the team, but it was great to be part of it … I’m really proud to be part of that team.”

Davidson’s work in hockey began when he coached the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Brandon Travellers during the 1978-79 season, sharing the Keystone Centre with the greatest Wheat Kings team in history and their outstanding coach, Dunc McCallum.

He said it was the first of many stepping stones.

“The young guys on the Travellers obviously followed the Wheat Kings very close because that was the parent team and certainly watched them practise and watched that very strong Wheat King teams over the course of a couple of years, ” Davidson said. “I can honestly tell you as a green, rookie coach, which I was, I’ve said to a couple of guys who played on that team, ‘Boy, oh boy, I didn’t have much to offer yet as a coach.’

“As the years go by, you gain more and more experience and feel you have more to offer from a coaching perspective. Now I’m obviously in management, so it’s a little bit different. A lot of things you learned in the past help you with the present.”

Davidson headed to Europe after, and in 1991-92 began a long stretch in the BCHL, including as owner, general manager and coach of the Salmon Arm Silverbacks.

He made the jump to the WHL as the director of player personnel for the Portland Winterhawks for four seasons from 2008 to 2012, before becoming general manager of the Everett SIlvertips for the 2012-13 season.

In nine years in Everett, the Silvertips finished first five times and averaged more than 40 wins per season in the U.S. Division. In 2018, he was named WHL executive of the year and the recipient of the Lloyd Saunders Memorial Trophy.

After Everett let him go due to cost-cutting measures during the pandemic, Davidson joined the Hitmen on June 10, 2021, as director of player personnel, and succeeded one-time Brandonite Jeff Chynoweth as GM on Nov. 1, 2023.

He said his long career in Junior A and in Portland and Everett made the transition seamless.

“All the experiences you have from one situation to the other and seeing the inner works of different organizations helps you in the future,” Davidson said. “Experience is a great teacher. I think my time in those other two organizations helped me transition on to the job here in Calgary.”

He added it’s also important to work with quality individuals, pointing to longtime Wheat Kings scout Gary Michalick of Winnipeg, who is now Calgary’s director of scouting.

“If you put good people around you, good things happen,” Davidson said. Indeed.

Davidson was nominated as executive of the year again last spring, with the other five nominees including former Brandonite Mike Fraser, the current GM of the Silvertips.

Davidson and Fraser go way back: Davidson actually traded for Fraser when he was still playing and brought him onto the scouting staff in Everett. That made the nomination day extra special.

“You’re always pleased to see people that you’ve rubbed shoulders with and been involved with do well and get recognized for the job they’re doing,” Davidson said. “That’s always pleasing, not just in the case with Mike but also with many of the other people I’ve worked with over the years and the players you’ve had an opportunity to work with as well.”

The Hitmen certainly made a great decision bringing Davidson on board, a fact punctuated by his work in the last few months.

Calgary graduated a lot of talent after last season when they stocked up for a playoff run but ultimately lost in the Eastern Conference semifinals to the Lethbridge Hurricanes in a terrific seven-game series.

“We knew we would be in a retool or a rebuild,” Davidson said. “I think the thing that really helped us out, because we did turn over a tremendous amount of people not just in numbers but also in quality, was the (NCAA) rule change. It had a big impact on where we sit today.

“All of a sudden some of the players we were struggling to recruit became easy to recruit. We listed a few other young guys who probably wouldn’t have come our way if the rule change didn’t happen. We knew we were going to have to fill lots of positions.”

They used that as a positive, telling players jobs and opportunities were available.

On top of that, the Hitmen also had tremendous upheaval with their coaching staff, losing head coach Paul McFarland to the Edmonton Oilers, while his assistants David Liffiton and Ben Wilson also moved on during the summer.

They were replaced in late July by new head coach Dustin Friesen and assistants Brad Moran and Dakota Krebs.

“It wasn’t just rebuild the roster, it was rebuild the coaching staff,” Davidson said. “In hindsight now, I think we made some very good decisions in regards to the people we brought in. Dustin is a first-class young man. I’m really impressed by what I’ve seen from him to this point. “Obviously our players have responded very well to him.”

Through 14 games, the Hitmen are a surprising 10-3-1-0 and sit fifth in the Eastern Conference. On Sunday, they beat the Wheat Kings 3-1, and with a tremendous defensive structure in place and a contagious work ethic, didn’t allow much to one of the WHL’s most potent offences.

“When the season was over, we were looking at it, and it was, ‘Oh boy, we have a lot of work ahead,’” Davidson said. “To this point, a lot of things have fallen into place. It is early, but I really like our group. It’s a very young group, but it’s a group that has lots of growth and potential moving ahead.”

The nimble way Davidson adapted to incredible change will certainly help moving forward.

Since the NCAA rule change a year ago granting eligibility to major junior players, the job of WHL executives has changed dramatically. It’s now harder to plan than ever before because players could be headed to college without warning.

“It was very easy to project out three years what your roster might look like,” Davidson said of the time prior to the change. “You would have holes in that roster, but you would also have a good idea of some of the holes that were filled. I have no idea who we’ll have back next year right now, sitting here in the early part of November. “This goes back to my days in Junior A, where from year to year the turnover was substantial.”

He said the biggest difference was that BCHL teams could grab a player from anywhere, while WHL clubs have to work within the confines of all the 50-man protected lists in the league.

“Planning is very difficult right now, which puts a lot of pressure on us to make sure we’ve really assessed our 50-man list,” Davidson said. “We have to make sure the people who are on it are potential players. In the past, maybe you could hold onto a player a little longer.

“Maybe now you have to move from that player and look to somebody else who developed in the last six months or year, and of course now we have to look south of the border.”

Of the 25 players listed on their online roster, nine are veterans, 16 are rookies, and six are American.

All of that is taking place in the spectre of a sea change in hockey itself. In the age of video work, personal trainers, prep schools, skills coaches, and a 12-month devotion to the game, the sport is faster and more skilled than ever before.

Davidson is thankful for the team he spent coaching in Europe in the 1980s because it hinted at the direction the game was headed.

“Back in the ’70s it was rough and tumble and the small player literally had no chance to play unless they were phenomenal or exceptional,” Davidson said. “That went through the next couple of decades, but the game is still all about skating and thinking and competing, and there isn’t the clutch and grab there used to be.

“There is more room to move out there, and certainly the transition and the speed and the pace of the game is phenomenal today at every level.”

And while Davidson has now served as a coach or executive in six different decades, he’s eager to keep watching and learning.

“If you don’t evolve, you’re extinct or will go extinct,” Davidson said. “I think any of us who are in the game have to stay on top of the changes and what’s going on, or you’re out of the game very quickly.”

THIS AND THAT

• QUIZ — When was the last trade Brandon made? Who was the last roster player to end up somewhere else?

• WEEKLY AWARDS — The player of the week is 19-year-old Edmonton Oil Kings forward Max Curran of Prague, Czechia, who has 10 points in three games last week. He is a prospect of the Colorado Avalanche.

The goaltender of the week is 17-year-old Calgary netminder Eric Tu of White Rock, B.C., who won both his starts with a 1.51 goals-against average and .942 save percentage. That included making 19 saves against Brandon on Sunday.

The rookie of the week is 17-year-old Edmonton forward Dylan Dean of Maple Grove, Minn., who had four goals and two assists in three games.

• TRADE FRONT — On Wednesday, the Spokane Chiefs sent 18-year-old defenceman Caden Campion of St. Paul, Minn., to the Wenatchee Wild for a conditional seventh-round pick in 2029… On Tuesday, the Swift Current sent overage forward Rylan Gould of Headingley, who had been playing at Michigan Tech, to the Everett Silvertips for 16-year-old forward Damen Vanderberg of Lethbridge and a conditional first-round pick in 2026. The teams had made a similar deal on May 8 that was scrapped when Gould chose to go to school instead.

On Thursday, the Kelowna Rockets acquired 18-year-old defenceman Peyton Kettles of Winnipeg for a package that includes 18-year-old defenceman Jackson Gillespie of Keller, Texas, plus five draft picks that include a first-round pick in 2027 that originally belonged to Regina, second-round picks in 2026 (originally belonging to Wenatchee) and 2029, and fourth-round picks in 2026 and 2029.

On Saturday, the Moose Jaw Warriors acquired 19-year-old goaltender Chaze Wutzke of Debden, Sask., and a second-round pick in 2026 from the Red Deer Rebels for a first-round pick and a third-round pick in 2026, a second-round pick in 2027, a fourth-round pick in 2028, and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2029.

On Sunday, they sent 19-year-old goaltender Matthew Hutchinson of Nanaimo, B.C., to the Regina Pats for a sixth-round pick in 2028.

• SIN BIN — The league was busy last Tuesday. The Prince George Cougars were fined $250 for a warmup violation versus Seattle on Oct. 25 … Calgary’s overage forward Harrison Lodewyk was assessed two games under supplemental discipline for his actions in a game at Edmonton on Oct. 26 … Former Swift Current defenceman Peyton Kettles was handed two games for checking to the head major and game misconduct at Prince Albert on Oct. 24.

• ALUMNI GLANCE — Former Wheat Kings captain Nate Danielson is currently in the American Hockey League for a second season with the Grand Rapids Griffins. In four games this season, he has a goal and four assists after putting up 39 points in 71 games last season as a 20-year-old rookie.

Danielson spent four seasons in the WHL — the first was in the Regina hub — and had 217 points in 199 games. All but 28 of those games were with Brandon. Danielson, who was picked fifth overall in 2019, served as co-captain with Nolan Ritchie for the 2022-23 season, and was captain when he was dealt to the Portland Winterhawks on Jan. 9, 2024, for a package of picks and players, including current Wheat Kings forward Nick Johnson.

• THE WEEK AHEAD — Brandon hosts the Swift Current Broncos on Wednesday at 7 p.m., and then journeys into the great unknown west of Moose Jaw when they travel to Alberta for the first time this season to meet the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Friday at 8 p.m. (CT) and the Medicine Hat Tigers on Saturday at 8 p.m.

• ANSWER — If you remembered Brandon’s last deal, in which they sent a sixth-round pick in 2029 to the Portland Winterhawks for their second-round pick in the 2025 import draft on June 30, you have an incredible memory.

The last player to be sent elsewhere was goaltender Alex Garrett, who was picked up when Brandon was without both Carson Bjarnason and Ethan Eskit just after the Christmas break. When both returned, he was sent to the Wenatchee Wild on Jan. 9, 2025, for a fifth-round pick in 2028.

The last time Brandon made it into November without a deal after the season started was 12 years ago, when they acquired the rights to 19-year-old forward Peter Quenneville from the Prince George Cougars for a third-round pick on Nov. 5, 2013.