Soakin’ in the Tubb: New year, different team but same championship expectations in Medicine Hat

By JAMES TUBB on September 20, 2025.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

A trip around the sun brings a year, complete with birthdays, celebrations and other stops along the way in the Earth’s annual orbit. This latest whirl around that bright, shining star has been doozy for the Medicine Hat Tigers.

The past year brought ups and downs, franchise-altering changes to junior hockey, the summit of the WHL’s ultimate prize and then the crush of missing the Memorial Cup by one game.

A year ago, the Tigers were coming off a summer of trades, reworking the entire defence core and bolstering an offence that encapsulated a team slated as the best in the country. They were fresh off submitting a bid to host the 2026 Memorial Cup and looked to overcome the disappointment of back-to-back first-round exits.

They made even bigger trades as the season drew on, bucking organization history by swinging for the fences, decisions that paid off in spades. But they’ve also lost, as other teams have in junior hockey, with the NCAA’s rule change. There is no way to replace the best amateur hockey player in the world, Gavin McKenna’s impact as a Tiger has been documented and his greatest contribution will hang forever in the rafters of Co-op Place, alongside the franchise’s five other championship banners.

The Tigers, unlike most recent champions, were able to respond and recoup by signing a core of U.S.-born players to supplement a young returning core. There’s still a lot to be excited about in the orange and black, they look poised to be the first defending champs to return to the playoffs since the 2019 champion Prince Albert Raiders clinched a spot in the soon-to-be cancelled 2020 playoffs.

With the amount of change the Tigers have seen, the introduction of those new players will take some time. Head coach Willie Desjardins says it’ll be the second half before they know what kind of team they have. It’s similar to last season, where the Ruck twins, Shaeffer Gordon-Carroll and both Veeti Väisänen and Niilopekka Muhonen all needed the first half of the season to get acclimated to the rest of the league. The new additions last season also needed half a year to get used to the structure.

It’s the same allowance that this year’s new players will need. Gavin Kor, Kade Stengrim, Kyle Heger, Noah Davidson, Carter Casey, Yaroslav Bryzgalov – it’s a group not used to the WHL yet, and it will take some time.

Is there much of an appetite for patience with this team? The 18-year wait for a championship felt long, it ached on with runs to the first and second rounds as teases before the ultimate goal was reached. Now, in a new era of both junior hockey of the Tigers, patience will be needed as they look to produce a championship product with a new core.

It takes time to build a fire, get the proper fuel, enough air and ultimately, a spark. The 2025 championship-winning Tigers had the talent, they had the belief and, ultimately, the support of the entire city to ignite the run that reclaimed Co-op Place as their own. Just as the Earth begins another trip around the sun, the foundation for a new fire in Medicine Hat has begun.

Will it burn well enough to paint the sky like it did just last spring? Only time will tell what the ride will be, until then, all we can do is enjoy it.

Tubb Thoughts

• There have been a lot of new faces to learn around the Tigers this season, all happy to be in Medicine Hat. It is funny looking around the Co-op Place parking lot, could be confused for a lot in Minnesota with the four products from the State of Hockey.

• For those curious, 18-year-old Belarus forward Yaroslav Bryzgalov is not related to legendary goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov. The latter liked to stop the puck, the Tigers’ forward loves to put it in the back of the net. He didn’t score as much as he wanted to last season in the USHL, he’s on a mission to change that.

• It’s going to take some time before the main roster is decided. Two defencemen at NHL camps, what looks to be three injuries up front (Shaeffer Gordon-Carroll, Ethan Neutens, Gavin Kor), it gives the roster battles more time to shake out. Safe to assume they’d want to have as close to the full roster, health provided, decided by the start of the B.C. road trip (Oct. 24 in Kamloops).

• One question with no answer heading into the season is, “How will the Tigers replace the impact Oasiz Wiesblatt had?” There is no player or person like the former captain, the energy he brought on the ice and around the team can’t be duplicated. It was heartbreaking to learn about his older brother Orca’s death this week. The Wiesblatt family is a true hockey family, one that is ingrained in rinks and communities across Western Canada. Our hearts go out to them in this unimaginable time.

James Tubb is sports reporter with the Medicine Hat News. He can be reached at jtubb@medicinehatnews.com

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