{"id":885398,"date":"2026-09-06T10:08:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T10:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885398\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T10:08:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T10:08:25","slug":"surrey-knights-ice-young-team-under-new-coach-gm-robinson-pjhl-vet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885398\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrey Knights ice young team under new coach\/GM Robinson, PJHL vet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>              Surrey Knights ice young team under new coach\/GM Robinson, PJHL vet<\/p>\n<p class=\"pubStamp\">Published 11:55 am Friday, September 4, 2026<\/p>\n<p>A winter without coaching hockey was on the horizon for Steve Robinson, but then an opportunity in Surrey proved too tempting for the veteran, cup-winning PJHL bench boss.<\/p>\n<p>Previously with Delta Ice Hawks, Robinson now leads Surrey Knights in the new-look Pacific Junior Hockey League, more firmly designed for the development of young hockey players.<\/p>\n<p>With <a href=\"https:\/\/surreynowleader.com\/2026\/08\/10\/coach-liboiron-leaves-surrey-knights-for-eagles-as-the-junior-hockey-landscape-evolves\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Andy Liboiron leaving the Knights<\/a> for a job with the BCHL Surrey Eagles, a door opened for Robinson with PJHL Surrey as head coach and GM.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis summer was the first time in 24 years where I wasn\u2019t having to prepare a team for fall hockey, and this came together quickly,\u201d Robinson said Aug. 18. \u201cI met with John (Craighead, Knights owner) and we shared a vision about what we need to do here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Knights will ice a team of mostly 16- and 17-year-olds this season, which starts Thursday, Sept. 10 with a game in North Surrey against Cloverdale, as the PJHL becomes an eight-team Junior B circuit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI did some homework on the league,\u201d Robinson said, \u201cand with the model they\u2019re going for, by cutting down on 20s (20-year-old players) and going with U20 development, that really spoke to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Robinson brings several former Ice Hawks players to the bench in Surrey including Henry Smith, Merik Erickson and Danylo Bereza, coaches of young players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will recruit kids with the mentality of whether they stay here for a week, a month, a season or part of a season, we\u2019re happy to have them come in and move then on, be a development stepping stone,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cThe more kids we move on, it\u2019s the best recruitment tool we can have. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt becomes a U.S. college vibe where kids are one (season) and done,\u201d he added. \u201cIt makes more work that you\u2019re turning over your roster, but if you embrace that whole college vibe, a transient roster, we\u2019ll have kids of similar mindsets where they\u2019re coming in to get their feet wet junior-wise and maybe need a little bit more seasoning before (Junior A), whatever league it is. That makes a lot of sense to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Knights\u2019 five-game preseason ended Sept. 3 with a 7-6 loss to White Rock Whalers, reigning PJHL champs.<\/p>\n<p>The season ahead sees 7 p.m. Thursday home games at North Surrey Sport &amp; Ice Complex and road battles for the Knights in Cloverdale, White Rock, Port Moody, Mission, North Vancouver, Aldergrove and Abbotsford, details on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pjhl.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">pjhl.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Last April, B.C.\u2019s junior hockey landscape changed with the arrival of British Columbia Hockey Conference (BCHC), a new 22-team Junior A league launching this fall. The BC Hockey-sanctioned BCHC will include Delta Ice Hawks and seven other teams that have exited the PJHL.<\/p>\n<p>The BCHC will rival BC Hockey League (BCHL, Surrey Eagles included), which left Hockey Canada in 2023 in a move designed to give players a better pathway to NCAA teams in the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surrey Knights ice young team under new coach\/GM Robinson, PJHL vet Published 11:55 am Friday, September 4, 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-885398","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\/885398","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=885398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}