Shawn Mullin's Trail Smoke Eaters Blog: California Dreamin'

The Trail Smoke Eaters will have another California product on the Cominco Arena ice this season. Tyler Tosunian actually comes from the same home town as former Smokie August Aiken. Both are skilled forwards from Whittier, CA. Coach Jim Ingram says Tosunian plays a similar game to Aiken. Hopefully he'll be able to help replace the production Trail will lose now that August is heading up to Alaska to start his NCAA career. Ingram actually carded Tosunian site unseen. He relied on glowing scouting reports from a number of different people the coach trusts. It'll be interesting to see all the players from around North America as they come together for training camp. There are a lot of impressive statistics, but it's hard to know what we have here until you actually see the guys play. Ingram is expecting a competitive camp with tons of spots up for grabs.

Tosunian scored 14 goals and 37 points in 41 games with the LA Junior Kings AAA Midget team last season. Click here for a link to their stats page. Tyler also played 13 games for Wichita Falls in the NAHL. He had a goal and an assist with a +1 rating and 12 PIMs. Hopefully he'll be able to increase that production as he returns to junior hockey this season with an extra year of experience and physical maturity. The 1990 born forward stood 5'7 and came in at 165lbs last year. Those numbers will probably be a little different at training camp this year, but it looks like he's going to be a smaller, shiftier offensive player.

For more information on Tosunian check out the interviews I did with him and Jim Ingram on Mountain FM's Overtime.

This blog is going to get a lot more active as we get set for training camp. The Smoke Eaters will be on the ice on Monday and Tuesday with a bunch of local players. If you're 15-20 years old and interested in getting in some practice and scrimmage contact the Smokies office before Monday. Check out trailsmokeeaters.com for more details.

Trail will also have four exhibition games this pre-season. They'll play Powell River on the 26th and 27th in Princeton before coming home for games on the 29th and 30th against Merritt. It'll be nice to see former Smokies Cam Brodie, Brad Davis and Dylan Herold back in town so early.

In the next couple of days we'll have some more audio from Jim Ingram leading into camp. I also have a neat picture to post from a trip a couple of Smokies took to Alaska to visit their former teammates from the northern state. Apparently the boys are pretty good fishermen.

Younger Getting Hitched

I just want to quickly congratulate Smokies Assistant Coach Brian Youngson as he ties the knot this weekend. I don't want to reveal any more personal information than that so I'll just say they're both very lucky and I wish them well in their long journey together. Plus I owe them both big time for introducing me to a certain someone...

Play By Play Returns to Mountain FM

Lastly I wanted to announce happily that AM Ford Trail Smoke Eaters Hockey will return this year to Mountain FM. We'll be proudly broadcasting every road game on the Smokies schedule. We're also going to be actively involved in helping to promote the hockey team and add some extra entertainment to home games. The Smoke Eaters are committed this year to not only improving the on ice product, but the off ice product as well. They've hired a marketing man and Jack is going to do a great job getting things lined up this year. As a community owned organization the Smokies don't have the resources other teams have for promotions, but we're all going to work together this year to try to bring some extra entertainment to the rink and the community. I personally will be working hard to make sure our broadcasts of the road games do the best job we can do at painting the picture of the action you have to miss while your Smoke Eaters are on the road.

Get your season tickets over at Remax in Trail. It's going to be a fun year.

Frankly I'm itching to get going. Off season is too long! In the mean time you should all do your best to check out the BC Summer Swimming Provincials at the Trail Aquatic Centre this weekend. The Kootenay swimmers have been doing a great job representing our regions, and the volunteers have put on a terrific show.

See you at the rink!