Walchuk Finishes Atop BCHL Playoff Scoring:

This is in the BC Hockey Now Magazine:

Walchuk finishes atop BCHL playoff scoring

Thursday, April 14, 2011

By Mark Janzen

On March 25, 2011, Dylan Walchuk put his stamp on both the Vernon Vipers as an organization and the BCHL as a league.
Not that the 5-9, 160-pound 19-year-old from McBride, B.C. hadn’t already impressed both his team and the league when he put together a 24 goal and 32 assist regular season, but on that particular Friday night, at the Sunwave Centre in Salmon Arm, he busted a move that impressed even ardent Vipers fans.
And for a fan base that has been treated to back-to-back national Junior A championship seasons, which included the nightly Connor and Kellen Jones show, impressing them is, well, impressive.
It was Game 6 against Salmon Arm and Vernon was one win away from taking the BCHL’s Interior Confernce title.
Single-handedly, Walchuk proved why Northern Michigan University is so high on him – he will start at NMU in the fall – and why the Vipers have a chance to three-peat at this year’s RBC Cup, something that has never happened in the history of Canada’s Junior A championship.
With only four shots on net, Walchuk scored four goals.
He scored 4:18 into the game to make it 1-0. Then with nine seconds left in the first he scored to make it 3-1. Then 5:57 into the second he made it 4-1 and then 6:05 into the third period he made it 5-3, eventually leading the Vipers to a 5-4 series clinching win.
“Once he gets hot, he’s pretty hot,” said Vernon coach Mark Ferner. “He’s got that fire and it doesn’t matter how big a player is, you’re not going to intimidate him by trying to play physical. He wins races. He wins battles.”
Walchuk came to Vernon in 2009 after winning the KIJHL championship with the Junior B Nelson Leafs and leading his team in playoff scoring with 26 points in 16 games.
Upon joining the Vipers last year, Walchuk managed 47 points in 56 games but played much more of supporting role in the playoffs with the likes of the Jones brothers, Sahir Gill, Jonathan Milhouse and Dan Nycholat leading way. In the BCHL post-season, he had just one goal and four assists in 19 games.
This year, Walchuk is the man up front. And with 10 of last year’s top 11 playoff scorers no longer with the team, he’s done a pretty darn good job of helping keep the Vipers at the top of junior hockey world.
“He’s such a competitive guy,” Ferner said of Walchuk, who has 10 goals and five assists in 16 games. “He’s not a very big guy but he’s relentless on pucks. He’s got a great work ethic. He has the ability to beat guys one on one in tight quarters. He’s been here a couple years now and I think he’s matured into a better all around player and has become more responsible defensively. He doesn’t cheat for offensive situations and he knows the importance of playing in his own end as well.”
With a pair of fellow 5-9 snipers in the Jones brothers leading the charge before him in Vernon, Walchuk had a perfect model to follow. And, albeit relatively quietly, he’s done just that.
“I really looked up to Conner,” Walchuk said. “He was a really good role model and same with Kellen. They are really good guys. They’re both kind of similar players and smaller like me. I really looked up to them and tried to learn from a lot.
“Even this year, we’ve talked and they’ve given me tips and I’m still learning from them.”
Ferner added: “I know that they’re in the same mould as far as players are concerned and you can see the competitiveness the [Jones brothers] had in Dylan as well.”
Over the previous two years Connor and Kellen made their mark on Canadian Junior A hockey’s biggest stage.
Walchuk has done it in Vernon, in the BCHL and now all he and his team have to do is win a seven game series again the AJHL champion Spruce Grove Saints, to have a chance to do so at the RBC Cup.