New Ownership Bring Changes

Attracting players to travel, live and play in Prince George is not the easiest of tasks for Scouts and Management, but somehow they find a way to attract players.

The past few seasons have seen questions arise with the team and why anyone should live in that part of the world just to have a chance at making it to the pro ranks.

In the off-season the team changed ownership with a group that not only understanding the game, but playing the game at a high level – the NHL.

Eric Brewer and Dan Hamhuis have stepped up and become involved in the ownership group that are looking at bringing fans to the game and put a winning product on the ice for the betterment of the community.

Both being veteran defenseman and from British Columbia in addition to both having played their junior hockey with the Prince George Cougars.

As part of a new ownership group they (Brewer and Hamhuis) are hoping to help their old Western League team out from the dark ages to the glory day’s of yesteryear.

Brewer to the media “It’s a city where the team and the organization has room for improvement and we want to re-establish the team.”

The Cougars have not made the playoffs in years and that’s a sad state all considering only six teams in the 22-team league miss each year for post-season play.

The high end player that they have wanted to attract simply hasn’t come to the area and truth be known the best Cougar in recent years was Brett Connolly (sixth overall by the Lightning/2010), so this does not help the team or the community.

It worked out that Connolly only missed all but 16 games in his draft year all due to a hip injury and in his 59 games a year later out of possibly 72, this wasn’t enough to help push the Cougars through to the playoffs for post-season.

PG had the top pick in the 2009 bantam draft taking young Alex Forsberg, but for whatever reason he never became that star player and was eventually traded to the Saskatoon Blades.

The second overall pick in that draft just happened to be Curtis Lazar selected by the Ottawa Senators first round (17th overall) of the 2013 Entry Draft

The small-town in northern BC isn’t a huge destination or place for upcoming young talent at the present time and only had one American on the roster last year.

He was also one of the only NHL draft picks on the squad (St. Louis, 112th overall in 2013).

Brewer finds it easy to talk to the media about his passion to bring players to the area and he mentioned “Having both of us play there helps and at some point we’ll be able to answer questions for families, but we’re not going to be door-to-door salesmen.”

Indeed, Brewer and Hamhuis have only begun to get their teeth into their new investment and since they’re both still viable NHLers, seeing the team live during the season will be virtually impossible.

It’s the name recognition that will be a huge help and draw for the team given the fact that the Cougars had the worst attendance overall in the league last season.

Winning will help solve that and having new ownership blood with a stake in the matter is also good. Brewer’s in-laws still live in Prince George and that’s where his wife is from originally.

Moving forward the Cougars have a good prospect for the 2015 NHL draft in Jansen Harkins, who helped Canada win Gold at the Ivan Hlinka tournament and if he can have a big year, the ownership of Brewer and Hamhuis will have more reasons to get fans off the couch and in the stands at the rink.

Here’s hoping for the best for new ownership and the community of Prince George!!