Game On Magazine 2017 Game On Magazine - Regular Season Edition | Page 38

The Fish I
Re-Load
B Y S C O T T TAY L O R
Photos by James Carey Lauder
and Laurie Anderson
t was back on Jan. 19, that
the Selkirk Fishermen
punched their ticket to
the 2018 Keystone Jr. B
Hockey League playoffs.
With the season ending
at home on Sunday night,
Feb. 18, it’s time now for head
coach and general manager
Chris Poponick to rest his top
players and get ready for the
all-important “second season.”
“It’s been a good year,”
said Poponick. “We’ve been
figuring out how to find the
magic. We’ve won a lot of
close games and that’s been
very good for us. We thank
the other teams in the league
for giving us some important
life lessons. Being able to win
close games is what builds
character.”
This year, as we barrel
toward the post-season, three
teams have dominated the
2017-18 KJHL season. By
the end of January, Selkirk
was 22-2-0-3, South Division
champions and the best team
overall. The OCN Storm was
22-3-0-1 and had wrapped
up the North Division. And
defending champion Pegui s
was 21-3-0-1 and first in the
Central. The Juniors were,
however, still getting an
argument from the Arborg
IceDawgs, who 16-5-0-4 and
still in the first-place hunt.
“Yeah, we’ve been talking
around the league about the
post-season and if I were
making any bets, I’d say us,
Peguis, OCN and Arborg
will be the final four,” said
Poponick. “But we just had a
real close game with Lundar
and St. Malo is always around
come playoff time. It’s a good
league this year, but obviously
four teams have kind of pulled
away from the pack.”
It’s been a particularly
satisfying year for Poponick,
whose Fishermen have been
successful despite the fact
he’s often gone with as many
as 13 rookies in the lineup.
He’s also been without high-
scoring 19-year-old Milan
Horanski for most of the
season and leading-scorer, 21
year-old Drayton Mendrun
(21st in league scoring with
19 goals and 34 points in the
first 24 games), has missed
some games recently as he
recovers from injury. He was
just banged up and once we
clinched, I decided to have him
sit out on (Jan. 21) to give him
some rest and get him healthy
for the playoffs.
“We were very fortunate
to get Horanski back into our
lineup,” Poponick explained.
“We were able to AP him. He’d
missed the entire season, up
until our game on Jan. 21,
against Lundar (he also had
a goal in that 3-1 win). He’s a
student at the University of
Winnipeg and he works at the
Metropolitan Entertainment
Centre in the city right next
to the Bell MTS Place so he
hasn’t had much time to play
for us. But he signed with the
Steinbach Huskies (Carillon
BIG GOAL BY SELKIRK CAPTAIN AND
LEADING SCORER DRAYTON MENDRUN
3 8 | G AME ON | R EGU L A R SEASON ED ITION 2018