The 100 Mile House Wranglers have made a couple of big acquisitions recently in hopes of shoring up the defensive corps, including picking up a No. 1 goalie.
Coach and general manager Dale Hladun went down to Vancouver earlier this week to bring back Jacob Severson – a 19-year-old goalie with a lot of experience in Junior Hockey.
Hladun notes Severson is basically carded by the team, but they have to wait until they get approval from the BC Amateur Hockey Association and all of the paperwork is done before he can play between the pipes for the Wranglers.
The coach says everything should be in place within the next couple of days.
“I wanted to add a little bit of experience. Jake is from the Lower Mainland and actually played with Adam Derochie [last year’s goalie].
“I feel that Clay Stevenson is an up-and-coming goalie, and it will be good for him to have somebody [with experience] he can chat with.”
Hladun says he was happy with goalie Brendan Henderson, but he felt the Wranglers had two “very good backup goalies.”
“We need to have more experience because we tend to run around in our own end a bit as a young team, so that’s why I went that way.”
The coach notes he’s trying to find a team for Henderson to go to, so they can make a trade.
“We want to do the right trade for him. He was good here and did a lot for the Wranglers.”
The other big pickup for the Wranglers was getting defenceman Matt Clarke who brings some size to the blue-line corps.
“He’s definitely physical and a great teammate in the room. We need some push back with our youth on the back end. They’re young and I wanted to add a little age and some ‘compete’ and Matt definitely brings that.”
Meanwhile, the coach is a bit growly these days and has been working the players hard in practice in an effort to get a change in attitude.
Hladun says the boys have to start paying attention to details and start playing smart and hard for 60 minutes of every game, and start winning every game.
“These boys have bleed Wranglers’ colours and win the Wranglers’ way.”
