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Rockets ready to open season with double-header in Victoria this weekend

A full week after the WHL season began, the Kelowna Rockets will finally have the chance to hit the ice for some meaningful hockey.

The club is off to Vancouver Island ahead of back-to-back games against the Victoria Royals on Friday and Saturday. Both games start at 7:05 pm.


They’re the last of the 22 WHL teams to play a regular season game, which head coach Kris Mallette said has been good for them.

“The layoff has given us the opportunity to go over the structure and style of play that we'd like to have, we were also utilizing this time to rest and recover,” Mallette explained.

“We've been working hard and planning our days accordingly, we're just working hard to get everything dialled in before Friday."

Kelowna won both of its preseason games against Victoria and the Royals are 0-1 on the season after dropping their home opener 5-0 to the Vancouver Giants.

<who>Photo Credit: Paige Bednorz

The Rockets will be without newly-acquired Colton Dach for this weekend series, as he remains away at Chicago Blackhawks training camp.

It’s expected that he’ll be returned to his junior team in the coming days.

This will be the first game as captain for Tyson Feist, who was given the C on Wednesday, and the first WHL regular season game for a trio of players in Gabriel Szturc, Marcus Pacheco and Caden Price.

Max Graham will play his first game for his hometown team after being dealt from the Everett Silvertips to the Rockets in late August. He led the team in scoring during the preseason.

The Rockets leading scorer in 2019-20, Pavel Novak, will also be making his highly-anticipated return to the team’s lineup after missing the shortened 2020 season due to visa issues.



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