(photo credit to the Prince George Spruce Kings)

By Jeromy Corrigan

Off-Season

Cochrane ready for bounce-back season with Kings

Jul 7, 2020 | 4:23 PM

Making the jump from U18 hockey to Junior is not a small leap.

For 17-year-old Carter Cochrane, he was a part of a new young core with the Prince George Spruce Kings who embarked on their first full season of Junior A hockey this past year.

“It is definitely a big jump for sure,” explained Cochrane to CKPG.

“We had a good group of guys to show me the ropes and stuff like that. We were pretty young, but with the returning guys and the 20-year-olds and the guys who had the experience it was definitely easy for me to learn a lot from them.”

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From everything on the ice to school and road trips, the whole Junior experience was a new one for Cochrane, but having a solid group of veteran players who had been through the Kings Championship runs was a big help for the Victoria product.

“Just as far as practice goes and watching them and watching their habits and stuff they do. Talking to them about what games are like and road trips and that kind of thing and getting their perspective on it. Guys like Nick Poisson and Nolan Welsh, those guys who have lots of experience and have been in deep playoff runs. They taught the younger guys what it’s going to be like and what it is like to be in young series,” stated Cochrane.

Following a strong rookie season where he produced 5 goals and 9 assists as a 17-year-old, and with facilities starting to open up around the province, the training is starting to pick up for Cochrane as he looks to get stronger for his sophmore season.

“As the months went on, stuff started to open again so luckily I am back in the gym every day and back on the ice a few times a week too so I think it is just a matter of being patient and when stuff starts opening to take advantage of what you have.”

Despite the uncertainty of when exactly the 2020-2021 season will begin in the BCHL, Cochrane knows next year will be an exciting one for the Spruce Kings.

“It’s exciting. Especially because last year we weren’t a very high scoring team. I think we were one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league. So to get a lot of players from other teams that have experience in the league and have played multiple seasons and a lot of forwards that are good goal scorers and stuff like that I think is going to be huge for us. I think our whole group, forward and D and goalies and all of that will be great.”