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Westside Warriors head coach Darren Yopyk is already thinking about next season. (Photo Chris Stanford)
By Pieter Uni
Warriors head coach Darren Yopyk isn’t letting a second round BCHL playoff defeat to the Penticton Vees cloud a very successful season.
The coach, who just completed his first season with the Westside Warriors, helped his team to 38-18-1-3 record this season, took time to speak with Kelowna.com about the way the Warriors season ended.
“Obviously we wanted to keep playing but I can’t be disappointed in our guys. I thought we battled really hard and a few bounces here or there and it is our series,” he said about the six-game series that ended with a 4-3 ovetime loss at home to the Vees. “Unfortunately we didn’t get those. I thought we deserved better but I thought we had a great year.”
Yopyk, who finished conducting exit meetings with players this week, said the players were responsible for a tremendous year.
“It is about the players and what they did. I want to personally thank the four 20 year olds,” said Yopyk. “Kevin Jebson, Trevor Bailey, Joel Woznikoski and Brendan Ellis were tremendous for us all year and were tremendous assets to the program. They were amazing and made my job a lot easier.”
The four players will all move on to new teams next year and Yopyk revealed where his veterans might turn up.
“Woznikowski will be going to a Canadian college, there are a number of them interested and Bailey will likely go to a NCAA Division III team,” said Yopyk, adding that Jebson’s future is still up in the air while Ellis has already committed to attend Merrimack College, an NCAA Division One school near Boston, in the fall.
While he has been concentrating on finding homes for his veteran players, Yopyk has also begun to look ahead at next year. Yopyk indicated he will use the second-round loss to Penticton as a way to spark next year’s troops.
“We use it for motivation,” he said. “We want to be playing right now and the guys are upset, so we are looking forward to September already.”
Yopyk readily admitted that all four will be dearly missed, but he is prepared to find new talent to take their place.
“You don’t replace them; guys step up and we’ve played some games without each one of those guys at different times,” he explained. “Recruiting is a big piece, we have to fill some holes, we will have our spring camp at the end of April so we are working on that, getting it all organized. ”
The coach said the Warriors organization will make a point of finding the best available players, but will focus on local talent first.
“We want to have a local flavour. Any player we feel is good locally, we want to make them a part of our organization,” said Yopyk. “We will go wherever we have to go to get players, but we want to get the most skill from British Columbia, the Okanagan if we can, and build off of that.”
He said the best way to get the top talent to Westside is by showing off his organization.
“I sell them (players) on our organization as a whole. First I sell them on the Okanagan and West Kelowna, I sell them on getting opportunities to move on, our coaching philosophies, we sell that we are in a great conference.”
Yopyk, who enters the second year of his three-year contract with the Warriors, said he will use the off-season more effectively than last year.
“I got here pretty late last year so there are some formatting issues I would like to take care of,” he said. “I am going to talk to the high school, I want to have a better line of communication with them and meet more of those people and do things I put on the back burner because I got here late and had to worry about the team and getting it going.
“I want to make sure we get a good strength and conditioning program going next year and work on some marketing pieces that can help our organization further than we did this year.”
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Tags: BCHL, Darren Yopyk, Westside Warriors
