EVERETT — The Everett Silvertips would be well served investing in ORCA Cards.
They’ll have a desperate need for some discount bus fares during January.
Everett rings in the new year with the busiest travel schedule in franchise history, and that stretch could make or break the Tips’ season.
“It’s something you deal with,” Everett captain Kohl Bauml said. “Is it ideal? Maybe not. It’ll be a tough January, we’re going to get used to the bus and get used to not having a lot of personal space. But it’s part of junior hockey and you learn to like it.
“Road trips bring the team together a lot,” Bauml added. “You’re going to be with the same group of guys 24 hours a day, so it’s going to be a pretty tight-knit group at the end of it. We’re looking forward to it.”
Never before in the franchise’s 12-season history has Everett faced a road stretch quite like this. Sunday’s 3-2 loss at Tri-City began a period in which 12 of Everett’s 14 games are on the road.
It isn’t just that the games are on the road, it’s the distance the Tips must travel, too. Everett takes two long bus trips each season: one for its six-game swing through either of the WHL’s East or Central divisions, the other for it’s two-game set at Prince George. This season those trips come right on top of one another. Immediately following Tuesday night’s game at Seattle the Tips embark for their six-games-in-nine-days trip through Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Then after returning home for a week, Everett immediately heads to northern B.C. for its twin bill at Prince George, stopping off for two games in Kelowna on the way back to create a brutal four-in-five.
And all of this occurs during the harshest part of the Canadian winter.
“I’m looking forward to it because I think sometimes it’s good for the players to just be together more, be more like a family,” Everett coach Kevin Constantine said. “Would it be more fun to do it away from freezing temperatures in the middle of Canada? Yeah. That was the nice part of last year because November wasn’t that cold (during Everett’s trip east). But in terms of the whole group being together and sharing some time together, I think that’s a good thing.
“It will be challenging,” Constantine added. “There’s a downside to the travel and the bus legs and the fatigue. But there will be a positive out of it, too, and that’s being together as a group.”
January could go a long way toward determining whether Everett finds itself in contention down the stretch for its first U.S. Division championship since 2007. The Tips are currently in first place at 21-10-3-1, and they’ve spent almost the entire season at the top of the division standings. However, after a blistering start Everett has leveled off. Since mid-November the Tips are just 7-8-1-0, and as a result the pack has closed. Spokane has moved within three points of Everett, and Portland is just two more points behind.
“The U.S. division is pretty tight right now at the top,” Tips winger Carson Stadnyk said. “People are starting to creep up and we’ve lost the majority of the lead we had before. Now this road trip is huge for climbing up in the standings again.
“It’s going to be hard because we won’t practice as often as we do at home,” Stadnyk added. “But we’ll still have to be mentally ready for every game, play 60 minutes every game and not take a shift off.”
Yet despite the impending challenge, the Tips are trying not to get caught up in the circumstances.
“I think WIN stands for, ‘What’s Important Next?’” Constantine said “You get on the road and you play your game, and then what’s next? I think if you just keep a day-to-day focus on it, not see it as, ‘Oh my God, we’re doing this for a month straight,’ and instead just get through the next day and see how good we can be, I think we’ll be OK.”
The good news for Everett is the Tips have fared well on the road so far this season. Everett is 9-5-0-1 on the road, and the Tips’ road winning percentage (.633) is nearly equal to their home winning percentage (.675). Also, Everett’s third-period meltdowns, in which they’ve blown late leads in alarming fashion, have occurred almost exclusively at home.
“We don’t really look at it as a challenge” Bauml said. “We play pretty well on the road, simplifying our game. It’s not necessarily a challenge — maybe it’s physically and mentally draining with a lot of bus trips and late nights getting into hotels. Eating right and getting enough sleep on the bus when we’re traveling is going to be important to us.”
And should the Tips survive their January travels, the trials and travails might just serve Everett well in the race to the finish line.
Around the WHL
Lethbridge traded 19-year-old defenseman Griffin Foulk, a former Silvertip, to Swift Current in exchange for a conditional eighth-round pick in the 2016 bantam draft. Foulk had been released from the Lethbridge roster the previous week. … Spokane dealt 18-year-old defenseman Colton Bobyk and a fourth-round pick in the 2016 bantam draft to Red Deer in exchange for 19-year-old defenseman Nick Charif, a second-round pick in 2015 and a conditional sixth rounder in 2016. … Medicine Hat’s Trevor Cox was named the WHL Player of the Week. The 19-year-old forward had three goals and 10 assists as the Tigers went 2-1 in the partial weeks spanning the Christmas break.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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