Victoria, BC ~ The Victoria Grizzlies announced on Wednesday morning that they had signed 20 year old goaltender, Kyle Kelsey, for the remainder of the 2024-25 season and have released ’05 netminder Tyler Hodges in a corresponding move.
Kelsey joins the Grizzlies from the Estevan Bruins of the SJHL after spending the 2022-23 season with Red Deer of the WHL and the 2023-24 season split between the Red Deer Rebels and Tri-City Americans.
Kyle, who hails from Maple Ridge, BC, will be with the Grizzlies for a second time in his four year junior career. He was with the Grizzlies as a 17 year old rookie during the 2021-22 campaign where he held a 14-12-0 record with a 2.83 GAA and .913 SV%.
“I am really excited to get back to Victoria, I know it’s a great organization and I’ve heard lots of great things about the team we have this year. I’m looking forward to joining the team and making it a memorable year,” he said in a statement.
Kelsey is certainly a junior hockey veteran goaltender as across all junior leagues, as he has appeared in 110 games while going 49-47-4.
“Anytime you make a move it is difficult,” said Grizzlies Head Coach and GM Rylan Ferster, “Tyler Hodges has done a wonderful job for us and is a great person and teammate. We are going to help him out in anyway that we can. We had an opportunity to bring in a number one goalie for us and a guy who is familiar to the program and it was almost a no brainer. When we looked at it, we figured it was the best move for the hockey team at this point and we would like to thank Tyler for his time here and thank him for his contributions to the program.”
Victoria heads to the mainland on Friday for a quick two game road trip with a stop in Surrey on the Friday and then in Coquitlam on Saturday.
