Cleve Dheensaw
Grizzlies visit Wenatchee on Friday, Cranbrook on Saturday.
If Owen Bohn can pull another four goals out the hat, or helmet as it were, it would no doubt be fine by him tonight in his former rink in Wenatchee, Washington.
Bohn’s quartet of goals led the Victoria Grizzlies (7-8-3) to a 7-2 B.C. Hockey League victory over the Trail Smoke Eaters in their last game played last weekend at The Q Centre. The 20-year-old from Morgan Hill, California, has seven goals on the season, and returns to Town Toyota Center in Wenatchee to play the Wild, a team with which he had 14 goals and 29 points in 42 games last season.
The season before, Bohn played for Philadelphia Hockey Club, which was then guided by current Grizzlies GM and head coach Rylan Ferster. When Ferster took over the Grizzlies this season, one of the first calls he made was to Bohn. The Philly-to-Victoria, via Wenatchee, move was set in motion.
“I coached him in Philadelphia and he was a good kid,” said Ferster, of the San Jose Junior Sharks youth association product.
“We had that connection. Then I had an opportunity to bring him here.”
The five-foot-11, 170-pound winger, whose mother is Canadian, is committed next season to Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as the Vikings move up to NCAA Div. 1 in 2023-24. Ferster predicting good things for Bohn at that level.
“He skates so effortlessly and reads the game well,” said Ferster.
“And he plays physical for a guy who is not huge. He is a complete player.”
Tonight’s game against the Wild (3-10-1) begins a five-game road trip for the Grizzlies, which continues by recrossing the border to play the Bucks in Cranbrook on Saturday night, in Powell River against the Kings on Nov. 18-19 and in Duncan against the Cowichan Valley Capitals on Nov. 25 before hosting the Capitals Nov. 26 at The Q Centre.
cdheensaw@timescolonist.com
