Scinocca battles back from bad break

It was 14 minutes seven seconds into the first period on Dec. 6, 2025 when Talon Scinocca’s life changed.

The 15-year-old Brandonite, who was the youngest player on the Okanagan Hockey Academy’s under-18 prep team, was near the boards when North Shore Warriors forward Sean Murphy made contact with him.

“I was in the offensive zone and the puck squirted out to the boards,” Scinocca said. “I was going in for it and this kid came up — I was about three feet from the boards — and he hit me straight from behind. As he hit me, I kind of twisted and went straight into the boards legs first.”

Murphy, a Spokane Chiefs prospect who finished the season with 71 penalty minutes in 28 games, received a boarding major, a game misconduct and later a one-game suspension.

Scinocca paid a much, much heavier price.

OHA BOUND

The right-shot centre Scinocca last played in Brandon during the 2023-24 season with a U15 AAA Wheat Kings squad that won a provincial championship. As a minor that year, he had 25 goals and 19 assists in 32 regular season games, and 10 more points in 11 playoff games.

Scinocca, who is the son of Dave and Sherrie and youngest brother to Daylan, Broden, Tyson and Shayla, made the difficult decision to head west for the 2024-25 season to Penticton, B.C., which is located 60 kilometres south of Kelowna, to attend the Okanagan Hockey Academy.

The prep school competes in the Canadian Sport School Hockey League, an increasingly large producer of talent in the sport’s overall ecosystem.

“I was thinking the competition is better out there,” Scinocca said. “I played my first year here in U15 and the competition was great obviously, but when I went out there, there are a lot of good players in B.C., and the academy scene is really good because there are a lot of great coaches who played at high levels in the NHL and lots of junior guys, so I just felt it would be better for my development.”

In his major U15 season at OHA in 2024-25, he had 15 goals and 23 assists in 36 games to lead the club in scoring and was named the team’s co-MVP.

Scinocca, whose game is built around being a strong 200-foot player who can win draws, be trusted in his own zone and create scoring chances at the other end, was rewarded on May 8, 2025 when the Penticton Vees picked him in the seventh round, 139th overall, in the WHL draft.

Like many Manitoba youngsters, he was in the car en route to the annual Pursuit of Excellence top 40 camp when it happened.

“I was really happy,” Scinocca said. “I didn’t know if I was going to go or not, and I wasn’t sure when. When I saw my name pop up and saw I was taken it was ‘Oh wow, this is going to be great because it’s right next door to where I play already.’”

In the fall, he had his chance to attend a WHL camp, and it just happened to be the first-ever major junior event for the expansion Vees, who left the BCHL to join the WHL this season.

“I learned a lot from that,” Scinocca said. “I learned how fast that league really is, and that you have to be big and strong to play there. The pace is really fast and you have to be able to communicate and make hard passes. There were definitely a lot of lessons there.”

He returned to OHA with high hopes to develop on another older team, and in his first nine games had three goals and three assists.

“I was pretty happy with that,” Scinocca said. “The first three games I had no points so I wasn’t happy with that, and then in the next six I started to pick it up a little bit with six in six.

“Unfortunately, in my 10th game I got hurt.”

AFTER THE HIT

Scinocca knew something was badly wrong as he lay on the ice at the Okanagan Hockey Training Centre a moment after the hit, but couldn’t identify the source of the problem.

“I couldn’t feel my leg at all but I actually thought I was OK,” Scinocca said. “I rolled over on my knees and I tried to get up but when I put my knee down, my leg went outwards so then I knew something was wrong. At first I thought it was my hip, that I had dislocated my hip or something, because I had no pain.

“I knew something was wrong so I thought I would just lay here and wait for someone to come help.”

The team’s athletic therapist, Shelby Buss, immediately rushed out on the ice to lend a hand. Scinocca’s mother Sherrie was in the stands watching and didn’t realize how bad it was in the moment.

“I saw him go in but I didn’t actually see how he went in,” she said. “When everybody was coming on the ice and he was still lying there, I knew something was wrong because he always gets up. He never stays down.”

Everyone immediately swung into action and Talon was soon stretchered from the ice and taken to Penticton Regional Hospital.

The most painful moment came when the staff had to lift him to put him on the X-ray bed and then pick him back up, something he calls “really bad” and the worst pain he’s ever felt.

The injury didn’t take long to diagnose: X-rays clearly showed Scinocca had broken the femur on his right leg.

“They said it was kind of best case that it snapped so cleanly because it was easier to fix,” father Dave said. While some teenagers might not be interested in receiving a lot of assistance from their mom, Talon was grateful she was there.

“It was good for sure,” Scinocca said. “She helped a lot. She kept me calm and was asking me questions trying to get it off my mind a little bit.”

Shayla was playing with the women’s U18 prep team at OHA, although when Talon was injured, she and Dave were actually at a tournament in Kitchener, Ont.

They found out what happened when Sherrie called.

“It was devastating,” Shayla said. “I was in shock. You never really think that something like that would happen, and when it happens to your younger brother, that’s scary.”

SURGERY

Talon had a 90-minute surgery the next morning, with a steel rod inserted into the hollow bone to stabilize it.

“The hospital was really good,” Sherrie said. “We went to the Penticton hospital and they were very quick about everything. That was the one benefit.”

If it had broken in multiple spots, the surgery would have been much more involved. Instead, Scinocca left hospital the next day on crutches, which would be a familiar accessory to him for nearly two months.

The six-foot-two, 165-pound teenager never wore a brace or cast.

“I was pretty uncomfortable but it wasn’t terrible,” Scinocca said of the pain. “My pain was probably around six. It was pretty bad but it could have been worse.”

The day he got out of the hospital, he had seven gentle rehab exercises to do that involved him trying to get his leg moving as he lay down.

“His leg was stiff and they just wanted a little bit of movement,” Sherrie said. “It was very, very slow.”

The early forecast was that he would be back on the ice in three to six months, although Sherrie said the surgeon reminded them everyone heals differently. Talon’s strongpoint was that he was so young, which generally signals a quicker recovery.

The injury was eerily similar to the one former Wheat Kings forward Nolan Ritchie suffered on Nov. 22, 2019 in Brandon when he lost an edge and crashed into the boards near the Calgary Hitmen bench at Assiniboine Credit Union Place.

Since the two families know each other, Ritchie — who played this winter in the third division in Germany with the Heilbronner Falken and Hannover Indians — was quick to text Scinocca.

“That was awesome,” Scinocca said. “I was really glad he reached out because he had the exact same break as me. Knowing I had somebody to talk to who had the same experience as me was really nice.”

In a small-world moment, the Hitmen’s athletic therapist that night in 2019 was Nathan Hollinger, who lent a hand on the ice to Brandon’s athletic therapist at the time, William Sadonick-Carriere. Hollinger now works at OHA as head of athletic therapy and Scinocca sees him at the training facility.

REHAB

Even with the clean break and the new steel rod, Scinocca had a lot of gruelling work ahead of him.

“I think I handled it a little better than I thought I would,” Scinocca said. “The first couple of weeks weren’t great but I just battled through it and got back quicker than they expected.”

When he was back in Brandon for the Christmas break, Drayson Cowan squeezed him in for four appointments at Dynamic Physiotherapy and Sports Injury Clinic and set Talon on the right path. He also works with athletic therapist Alan Luhowy at Champion Athletic Therapy.

“The physio was really arduous for sure,” Scinocca said. “Almost all my exercises were really hard to do. It was definitely tough having to do that three times a day but it got better each day until it got easy. As long as I got better each day, that was all that mattered.”

Not surprisingly, Scinocca usually did extra, sometimes with four full sets instead of three in a day. At one point, he had up to 38 different exercises to cross off his daily list.

“He will never say this, but he really did an incredible job rehabbing,” Sherrie said. “That was a lot of hard work.”

“He’s tough, that’s for sure,” Dave added. “It’s been a long four months.”

Any athlete who is rehabbing a serious injury actually suffers twin blows. The physical one is obvious, but the more insidious one can be the indefinite loss of the sport they love.

For a teenager who defines himself as a hockey player, it was devastating.

“It was really tough for sure,” Scinocca said. “Those couple of months were really tough. My rehab helped with that a little bit because it gave me something to do every day.”

After the holiday break, he returned to Penticton and the team continued to include him in everything. While some injured players elect for the seclusion of staying home, Scinocca remained busy.

“The coaches came over to our place and hung out for an hour to spend time with him, and half his team came over one night and brought gifts and hung out with him,” said Dave, who is the head professional at the Shilo Country Club and Wheat City Golf Course.

“They were picking him up and taking him to team functions. They made sure he travelled with the team and got to do everything the team did besides play the games.

“He was in the dressing room, he was in the hotel rooms, he listened to the coaches before the game and after the game. It was hard for him to watch, as it would be for anybody.

“We’re a sporting family, we come from a background of sports and not being to play the sport you love is tough for sure.”

“My teammates supported me a lot,” Talon added. “Once I got to go back to the rink, that definitely helped, being back with the boys and everything.”

At the same time, the Vees reached out to him on a regular basis to see how his rehab was proceeding, contact that Scinocca appreciated.

He was also overwhelmed by the texts and calls of support he received from his friends in Brandon.

The kindness extended to Dave and Sherrie, who had friends back home reaching out to offer any kind of help that was needed.

Along with that busy schedule, Talon continued his schooling — online for two weeks and then physically back at Penticton Secondary School — and passed some time with PlayStation’s NHL game.

LOOKING AHEAD

The combination of quick medical attention and a hard-working hockey player proved to be ideal. The teenager who left the hospital on crutches with a freshly mended femur got back on the ice two days before the three-month mark and is now cleared for full contact.

He has a full range of movement now and doesn’t feel the injury at all.

“The first skate was crazy,” Scinocca said. “It was awesome. I was super happy to get back on the ice but I could barely skate. I couldn’t really do much but I was just super happy to be back on the ice.”

In June, he heads to a rookie camp held by the Vees, and otherwise will spend the summer focusing on training at J&G Homes Arena rather than playing.

Even though he missed most of this season, his goal is to skate in the WHL next fall in his 16-year-old season. Failing that, he’ll return to Penticton and his U18 prep team.

But after missing half a season, at least he’ll be back where he needs to be.

“I can’t wait,” Scinocca said. “I wish I could play right now.”

While the teenager wouldn’t wish for anyone to get hurt like he did, it is inevitable that it will happen to somebody. His advice to anyone facing a major injury is they’ll simply have to persevere.

“You just push through it,” Scinocca said. “It’s going to be tough and you’re not going to want to do it, but if you want to get back on the ice, you’ll have to battle through.

“Just put in the work every day.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com