The Creston Valley Thunder Cats will start the 2014-15 season on Saturday, and head coach Jeff Dubois (left) is confident the season will be another successful one.
“We’ve got a strong returning group with a lot of drive, and guys who have an opportunity to have a larger role this year,” he said.
At press time, no final decisions had been made with the team still to play two of six exhibition games (results included two wins and two losses), but Dubois was expecting nearly a dozen to return from last year.
Their experience will help fill the gap left by the five 20-year-olds — Jesse Collins, Trevor Hanna, Brandon Formosa, Andrew Hodder and Jonathon Watt — who aged out, those five being among the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League’s top scorers and defencemen.
But a number of potential new players were discovered at a camp last month in Calgary, over a half-dozen of which are still playing, and a few excellent locals have been playing since last month’s main camp in Creston.
“Overall, the main camp was my first realization, ‘Hey, we’re gonna be a good competitive team,’ ” said Dubois.
That should make the Thunder Cats’ season-opener Sept. 13 a well-matched battle against the Kimberley Dynamiters.
“I think it will be two strong teams,” he said.
Taking over for former coach Josh Hepditch marks the second time Dubois has been a head coach, having coached Castlegar’s Selkirk College Saints, in the British Columbia Intercollegiate Hockey League (BCIHL), leading them to two consecutive league victories in 2013 and 2014.
Dubois had played hockey since he was a kid, and spent time as part of the Burnaby Winter Club, in which he tried out against players at higher levels. Knowing the NHL wouldn’t be an option for him, Dubois went on to study political science at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and, later, journalism at Langara College.
While at SFU, Dubois spent two years playing hockey for the university, which hadn’t had a team since the 1970s.
“I was able to play there without having an impressive junior hockey background,” he said.
Dubois also took on some coaching responsibilities, being part of the leadership that ushered the team to the league championships from 2008-12, three of those resulting in winning the BCIHL title.
While studying at Langara, he was still recruiting for, coaching and general managing the SFU Clan, as well as handling communications for the league. Through that, he came in contact with Selkirk College, which was in the BCIHL and looking for a new head coach after being at the bottom of the league for five straight seasons.
“They kind of took a chance on me because I hadn’t been a head coach on any level,” he said.
For Dubois, it was a test to see if it could become a career, and lead him to more opportunities at the junior level. It paid off, as he led the Saint to records of 21-3-0 in 2012-13 and 20-3-1 in 2013-14, as well as unbeaten playoff runs. The team finished the 2013-14 season with a 29-game home winning streak.
Speaking of winning streaks, the first Thunder Cats game Dubois saw was during the team’s 13-game winning streak in January and February, so he’s well aware that Hepditch set the bar high for the team that earned the division title for the first time this year.
“There (Castlegar), the idea was to turn it around,” he said. “Here, the idea is to hopefully keep doing as well as we’ve done the last year.”
Following exhibition games in Beaver Valley tomorrow and Castlegar on Wednesday, the Creston Valley Thunder Cats play regular season games Sept. 13 in Kimberley and Sept. 18 in Golden, before returning to Creston Sept. 19 for their home opener hosting the Golden Rockets.