The Virden Oil Capitals are ready to hit the ice for their eighth season.The Manitoba Junior Hockey League team starts its regular season on Friday in Selkirk. The next night that same Steelers squad visits the Tundra Oil & Gas Place.
“It’s always an exciting time of year when you play your first home game in front of your home fans and, certainly, we get great support in Virden,” Oil Capitals head coach Tyson Ramsey said. “We are looking forward to playing hard in front of them.”
After going through spring camp, fall camp, and the exhibition season with many players, the Oil Capitals have whittled the roster down to the group they plan to start the season with. Ramsey, who is in his first season as head coach, is excited about working with this group of players.
“We’re looking forward to getting a good week of practice in and starting to work on the structure part of our game,” he said on Monday. “We saw in the exhibition games a bit there are some things we are very good at as a group and there are some things we need quite a bit of work on. It’ll be nice to have our normal group, a settled group, and to get to work this week.”
When asked about those strengths, Ramsey said:
“We are a good-skating team. We’ve got good skill. Certainly, we have seen over the course of exhibition that we have given some teams fits in their own end of the rink. … We’ve got some work to do being cleaner coming out of our end of the rink and executing through the neutral zone.”
The Oil Capitals return a veteran team with 15 players back. Nine forwards return. They are led by captain Kolten Kanaski, who paced the squad with 32 goals and 62 points last season. Among the other returning players up front are Hunter Cloutier (24 goals, 49 points), Josh Belcher (43 points), Jack Einarson (41 points), Tanner Andrew (27 points) of Virden, Tristan Thompson, Brett Paddock, Dylan Halliday, and Parker Brakebill.
One newcomer is rookie Colin Cook, an 18-year-old who played U18 AAA with Brandon last winter and has been very solid in the exhibition season, Ramsey said. Sixteen-year-old Roux Bazin is still with the Oil Capitals. He was the team’s first round MJHL Draft pick in 2018. The team is also pleased to have 18-year-old Sam Brunton. He originally signed to play in Alberta, but the Dryden, Ont. product, who is known to play hard on both end of the ice, opted to come to Virden.
On defence, the Oil Capitals return four veterans in Jayden Wojciechowski (27 points), Logan Rands, Jacob Evans, and Austin Johnston. To that D core, the team has added Manson 17-year-old Bray Rookes; Jackson Orr of Brandon, who will be in his 18-year-old season; and 16-year-old Tyler Teasdale from Winnipeg.
Behind the D the Oil Caps return both goaltenders from last season. Third-year player Dalton Dosch had a 2.99 goals against average and .903 save percentage. Oak Lake’s Riley Wallace posted a .900 save percentage with a 3.01 GAA.
