64 young Eagles on crowded hockey roster this season, one to forget in Surrey<\/p>\n
Published 4:00 pm Monday, March 23, 2026<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a very busy junior hockey season for Brian Passmore, who navigated a roster of 64 players<\/a> \u2014 an incredible number for a general manager of any team, junior or not.<\/p>\n The 2025-26 season was Passmore\u2019s first with Surrey Eagles as GM and coach.<\/p>\n No question, it\u2019s been a year to forget for the Eagles, who sit last in the 20-team league heading into the final weekend of games.<\/p>\n All season, Passmore had his hands full with trades as the team looked to improve, and some players wanted fresh starts elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been a struggle, just disappointing, the way it\u2019s all transpired this year,\u201d Passmore said frankly. \u201cIt\u2019s just been a difficult season for us.\u201d<\/p>\n With more than five dozen players cycling through the lineup (10 of them goaltenders), and only a couple of skaters still around since opening night, the Eagles have seven wins in 52 games in the BC Hockey League\u2019s Coastal East division.<\/p>\n Surrey\u2019s final two games of the season are Friday, March 27 at Alberni Valley, then Sunday, March 29 at South Surrey Arena<\/a> vs. Prince George Spruce Kings, 4 p.m. puck drop.<\/p>\n Passmore is already working to build for next season with the help of assistants Cullen Revel and Brady Lynn.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s now the main thing, which guys are we going to return from the group that\u2019s currently here,\u201d he said. \u201cRecruiting-wise, it\u2019s wide open. We\u2019re looking to bring in more skill and speed. It\u2019s a bit harder when your record is what it is, that\u2019s no secret. But, you know, this organization has won in the past and I feel like we\u2019ll have a lot of good futures coming in from those trades we made.\u201d<\/p>\n Last summer the Victoria-based Passmore replaced Scott Gomez as coach and GM with an Eagles team in transition following a Fred Page Cup-winning season in 2023-24.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of returning guys I thought were going to be here, they ended up not coming back or, you know, asking for trades, which kind of made it a mess since the start (of the season),\u201d Passmore explained.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had kids leave to go to the Quebec league or go back to the United States,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Now that CHL players are eligible to play for NCAA Division I hockey <\/a>teams<\/a>, the BCHL isn\u2019t the only Canadian pathway to U.S. universities, creating trickle-down issues for the Eagles.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother hard thing about this league is that when you do well (as a player), you move on to the Western Hockey League or USHL,\u201d Passmore said candidly.<\/p>\n A couple of players worth keeping next season are 2006-born Kole Keen, who led the Eagles in scoring after an October trade with Cowichan Valley Capitals, and Russian forward Gleb Semenko.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got Semenko from Sherwood Park, and he\u2019s been one of our most productive players since the trade deadline, scoring pretty much every game for us, and he\u2019s only a 17-year-old,\u201d Passmore noted. \u201cI think he\u2019s a player that can be a real good player in this league.\u201d<\/p>\n Saskatchewan\u2019s Keen, meantime, is \u201ca player that you want to have 20 more of \u2014 a competitor, wants to win, has a positive attitude, doesn\u2019t really show his anger and frustrations as some other guys do,\u201d raved Passmore.<\/p>\n At times it\u2019s been tough keeping all young Eagles happy in a crowded nest where they didn\u2019t win a lot of games.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want the guys who want to be here and play for the pride of the team,\u201d Passmore said. \u201cIf they\u2019re thinking about going somewhere else, it\u2019s better they\u2019re not here.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great here in Surrey,\u201d he added. \u201cAs frustrating as it\u2019s been, we just found ways to lose games this season. I can count on two hands the number of losses we\u2019ve had where we feel we should have won the game. I think as a whole, we\u2019re building into next year and we\u2019ll be stronger.<\/p>\n South South Arena is a great facility in a good location with a solid fan base, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had good crowds all year, no complaints,\u201d Passmore noted. \u201cOur fans have been right there with us every single game. I feel that when we play at home, we\u2019ve had lots of entertaining games, overtime games, close games. But the last 15 games on the road, we\u2019ve kind of been a different group \u2014 just not the same level of confidence in our play. That could be from having so many younger guys right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"64 young Eagles on crowded hockey roster this season, one to forget in Surrey Published 4:00 pm Monday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-556646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}