MEET THE CAPTAINS - SHAEL HECHTER

Hello folks, with the Flyers off the ice until the 29th of January it give us some time to give you the next installment of the Meet The Captains series. This time we will look at 20 year old forward and Assistant Captain Shael Hechter.

Shael Te Nelson Hechter was born on November 17th, 1989 in Winnipeg. He is one of six kids born to parents Frank and Sue. He has three older brothers, Richard, Josh, and Chapin, as well as an older sister named Ilana. He also has a younger brother named Drake.

Shael grew up in Winnipeg with his family and says he grew up idolizing his brother Josh who is his hockey inspiration. Josh played in the BCHL for the Quesnel Millionaires and the Prince George Spruce Kings. He then went on to play college hockey where he averaged well over a point per game with St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH.

Shael would love to follow in his brothers footsteps and get a Division 1 scholarship and continue his hockey and academic career.

His advice to young hockey players would be to work hard, take in as much as you can, and most of all have no regrets.

There is one thing that most people don’t know about this Assistant Captain. He has two webbed toes on each foot.
In his first season with the Flyers this sniper has proven to be an effective goal scorer and energetic player. Here's hoping that it can continue down the stretch run.


We have one more installment to go in this series. Next time we will profile Assistant Captain Jordan Peters.

Don’t forget folks that MJHL All-Star weekend goes this Friday and Saturday in Winkler. Go to http://www.winklerflyers.com/ for all the information. The Flyers don’t play again until the 29th of January when they host the Winnipeg Saints.

Until then….have a good one!!!

DEADLINE THOUGHTS AND WORLD JUNIORS

Thank you all for your participation on my last post. The intent of this blog it to give you the chance to discuss and talk about the team in a constructive manner. I know that not everyone will always agree and that is ok. No matter what side of the fence you are on, one thing is tremendously clear…we all care.

As we all know the MJHL trading deadline passed at midnight on Sunday night and in my opinion, the Flyers are a better team after the deadline then they were before. This year was very different when you compare it to other years. Usually the brain trust of the team is huddled in the office burning the midnight oil and drinking cold Tim Horton’s coffee right up until the stroke of midnight. That was not the case this year.

After the December 1st roster cut down deadline the Flyers had 21 players on the roster and 4 available cards in which to fill before yesterday’s trading deadline. They added Matt Loopkey right after the Christmas break. They traded Caleb Suderman to Neepawa for T.J. Ahvenniemi and Graham Fast last week and then added Erik Soderlund early yesterday evening. So the trading was spread around a little bit and a little less stressful then waiting for the 11th hour.

Losing a guy of Suderman’s caliber is tough, but we have already seen that the guys the Flyers got in return are no slouches either. In his first 2 games, Fast has 5 points, Ahvenniemi has proven to be a great skater, a good puck moving guy, and has the ability to stir it up a bit in the corners. Loopkey seems to be up to his old ways that made him co-rookie of the year last year with the Flyers. And all I know about Soderlund is that he is huge. He was playing on a very, very deep team in Vernon. The Vipers are arguably one of the best teams in the country and are obviously loaded for a run this year. That sometimes leaves good players without a place to play and I think that is one of the reasons that the Flyers were able to get him. If he is as advertized then the Flyers blue line will be a little scarey once Jordan Peters and Troy Kliever come back from injury.

After looking and what the rest of the teams in the Addison Division did at the deadline there is no reason to believe that the Flyers can’t come out of their division this season.

As promised before I had the opportunity to head back to the Promised Land (Saskatchewan) over the Christmas break and got to take in some of the World Junior Hockey Championship in Saskatoon. Back in 1990 when the tourny was in Saskatoon my dad bought two tournament passes. He went to every game and me and my brother got to alternate. Just so happened that I got to go to the opening ceremonies and the final game where Canada beat Russia for the gold. It was interesting to sit there (this time) and wonder which of these players were going to go on and be superstars, cause last time I was at the tournament Trevor Kidd, Eric Lindros, and Pavel Bure were on the ice. I got to go behind the scenes thanks to my brother-in-law who was one of the in-house camera operators and needed an “assistant”. So I volunteered. Being an assistant camera operator if a very hard job. It involves many hours of….ah who am I kidding. I just got to sit there and watch the game haha. I worked one game and watched Canada beat Switzerland 6-0 on December 28th. Here are a few of my pics. And a big thank you to Josh. You are my favorite brother-in-law on the Friesen side of the family.
p.s. (he is the only one)

JAMES DUTHIE AND BOB MCKENZIE JUST WATCHING THE GAME

WHAT A NICE SMILE! (i think he is thinking of jennifer hedger)

BOB DEEP IN THOUGHT

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE TSN DESK

HAHA BOB IS HUNGRY

RIGHT BESIDE MY SEAT
(this is the reverse isolation shot camera, he has a list of players that he has to follow for isolation shots. he doesn't get to watch the game itself...just follows a single player around the whole time....kinda neat)

GIGANTIC CANADA FLAG BEFORE THE GAME STARTED

GORD MILLER AND "MONSTER" PIERRE MCGUIRE

ST. MALO NATIVE AND FORMER WINNIPEG SAINT TRAVIS HAMONIC (it was quit something seeing a guy who i used to see everyday doing flyers games play that the world juniors) READY FOR THE OPENING FACEOFF 6-0 WIN OVER THE SWISSJORDAN EBERLE WAS THE PLAYER OF THE GAME (i think the Flyers were in the running to get him at the trading deadline but just missed...i wish) AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST HERE IS JOSH...THANKS BUDDY

A FALLEN LEADER

Happy New Year folks. So as some of you may have heard I had the opportunity to check out the World Junior Hockey Championship in Saskatoon over the Christmas break. I got a behind the scenes look while working as an assistant camera operator thanks to a certain inside connection (my brother in law). I was going to talk about that and show you some pictures and video but I think I will wait until next week because I think there is a more pressing issue to talk about.

Those of you who came to the New Years Eve game against Steinbach will have noticed no Caleb Suderman on the Flyers blue line. Caleb is one of the most talented defenseman that I have ever seen. He can be chalked up as one of the best offensive d-men in the league and also one of the top defensive d-men, and to be in both categories is a very difficult task. He gets prime minutes, powerplay, penalty kill, 5 on 5, he’s an assistant captain, a leader on the team, a Winkler kid playing on his home town team, he’s close to family and friends, good access to scouts, and it is for all of those reasons and more that it boggles my mind that a guy who has just a few months left in his junior career would ask to be traded….anywhere!

I don’t know if it’s just me or what but the idea of leaving your team and sitting at home waiting for a trade is something that is a huge problem with junior hockey today and something that I just don’t understand. The exact reasons as to how and why he came to this decision I don’t know exactly, I would have to just piece certain facts together and guess…so I won’t. I will leave it up to him to answer that question if he wants to.

When talking with some of the players yesterday about this situation they seem to not fully understand it. Why would a person who is a leader on their team, an assistant captain, a person who should be there for the team in good and bad, decide that he doesn’t want to be on the team anymore. It seems that one of their leaders has turned his back to them.

This decision leaves everyone in a situation that they don’t want to be in. The Flyers now have to trade a local player that in a perfect world they would NEVER trade but now have no choice. They have to replace one of the top players in the league (which is dang hard to do). It never looks good when any team trades away a player that is from that community but let me assure you that this is not a choice that the Flyers made. It is a choice that Caleb Suderman made.

I just hope for his sake that he is sure that he is making the right decision. I just hope that he gets what he is looking for with this decision. It’s just weird that being a Flyer for the past two and a half seasons it is only now…with 3-4 months left in his junior hockey career that he can’t take it anymore.

Anyway, on a positive note forward Matt Loopkey (above and below) will be re-joining the team this weekend and that is great news. Loopkey is one of those bring your lunch pail and hard hat and get to work kind of players. He amassed 31 points in 45 games played as a rookie last season with the Flyers. He will be a welcome addition to the Flyers line-up. He was playing lacrosse in Kentucky this season on a scholarship and is very excited to be back with the Flyers organization.

So now the work of getting the roster set before the January 10th trading deadline gets a little harder as they now have to find a all-star caliber defenseman, and those as we all know don’t grow on trees.

Remember that this is my opinion and I would love to hear yours so please comment…