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No other Western Hockey League team, right now, is more Saskatchewan-made.
Saskatchewan-made: Lethbridge Hurricanes lead WHL with 9 Sask. players
“I really like the Saskatchewan kids. On any team I’ve had, I just think they bring character, and they’re honest players.”
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The Lethbridge Hurricanes lead the WHL with nine Saskatchewan players currently on their roster, including seven from the Saskatoon area.
If you ask Hurricanes general manager Peter Anholt, it’s a recipe to their success.
Anholt himself grew up in Naicam, and played for the Prince Albert Raiders before suiting up for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies. That was followed by a lengthy WHL career as a coach and now GM, with stops in Prince Albert, Seattle, Red Deer and Kelowna along the way.
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“Well, (the team’s Saskatchewan contingent) is really important,” Anholt said following his team’s 2-0 victory over the host Saskatoon Blades on Tuesday night. “I mean, I really like the Saskatchewan kids. On any team I’ve had, I just think they bring character, and they’re honest players. They compete hard. That’s a general comment, but usually they just want to play. They just want to compete and play.”
The Lethbridge team features four defencemen from the Saskatoon area in Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Noah Chadwick, Seattle Kraken prospect Caden Price, Logan McCutcheon and Carsen Adair, as well as Saskatoon-area forwards Brayden Yager (Winnipeg Jets prospect), Kash Andreson and Trae Johnson, plus Swift Current’s Anthony Wilson and Mossbank’s Chase Petersen.
The Hurricanes acknowledged their strong Saskatoon flavour by starting five Saskatoon-area products for the opening shift Tuesday as Chadwick, McCutcheon, Yager, Johnson and Price, who played up front, kicked things off.
“It’s kind of ironic adding Yager and Price at the (WHL trade deadline) because I had them at world juniors,” offered Anholt, who was the GM of Canada’s squad for the 2025 IIHF world junior hockey championship. “That was really good to add them, but since I’ve been in Lethbridge, we’ve had lots of Saskatchewan kids.
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“You usually know what kind of player you’re going to get, you know the families are good. There are just so many good qualities that you get. It’s not that you don’t get that from other provinces, but I just think it’s a staple here.”
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There’s the possibility that Lethbridge could be back in Saskatchewan for a first-round Eastern Conference playoff match-up with the Blades and P.A. Raiders among possible opponents.
“You know what, really and honestly, it’s so close,” Anholt says of the Eastern Conference. “We could play so many different teams right now. Hey, whoever you play, it’s going to be a hard series. That’s what we do know.
“Whether it’s Saskatoon or Brandon or Edmonton, or P.A., we’re close. Undoubtedly, it’s going to be hard, regardless, so we just want to get our game back to where we want it to be. Like, we hadn’t played very good in the last three weeks, so we need to get our (injured) guys back and get guys into the line-up and get playing a little bit better.”
dzary@postmedia.com
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