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PENTICTON, B.C. – Kiefer Sherwood spent several nights last spring chasing Quinn Hughes around the ice and generally pestering the Vancouver Canucks.

Now the former Nashville Predators winger is wearing a Canucks jersey.

After signing with Vancouver in free agency, Sherwood is at training camp in Penticton, B.C., lining up against the players he frustrated in the first round of the playoffs last season.

His former foes have welcomed him welcomed with open arms.

“I try to be hard to play against and try to hate the other team and play with that hate and that fire. But at the end of the day, it’s a business and it’s a game of respect,” Sherwood said. “You’re not going after guys if you don’t respect them, right? So now that we’re teammates, it’s just respect.”

The 29-year-old Sherwood’s path to Vancouver wasn’t linear.

A six-foot, 194-pound forward from Columbus, Ohio, he went undrafted before signing with the Anaheim Ducks as a free agent in March 2018, and played 50 games for the team during the 2018-19 campaign.

But Sherwood struggled to stick in the NHL, bouncing back and forth between the minors during stints with Anaheim, Nashville and the Colorado Avalanche.

Eventually, he realized that to cement his spot, he needed to find what made him special — and he landed on speed.

“It’s definitely something that I had to learn and kind of ingrain in myself and train. I think the saying is adapt or die,” Sherwood said. “At the end of the day, you can light up the minors all you want, but you want to be here in this league.”

To hone his speed, Sherwood added more dynamic movement to his training regime, looking to create a new level of explosiveness in his skating.

That explosiveness is the key to winning puck battles, he said.

“I want to hunt. I want to get in on the forecheck, I want to create time and space for my linemates,” he said. “And ultimately, it’s a possession game too. So I want the puck on our tape and to get it to guys that can make plays. We value the puck, we value possession, we value plays. And if we’re dumping it in or forechecking, I want to get it back.”

When he can’t get the puck back, Sherwood wants to wear down the other team.

“It’s kind of the game within the game,” he said. “And it’s that fire that I’m really focused on bringing every night.”

Last season marked a career-best campaign for Sherwood, who put up 10 goals and 17 assists in 68 regular-season appearances for Nashville.

He also appeared in all six of the Predators post-season games and contributed a goal before the team was eliminated by the Canucks.

“I’ve had to look inward a little bit and try to figure out what it’s going to take, and dig deep,” Sherwood said of his career. “And then from there, just keep refining and growing the identity that I need to play with night in and night out.”

His speed and tenacity hasn’t gone unnoticed at his first Canucks training camp.

“Even the forecheck drills, always he’s moving his feet. His effort’s high,” said head coach Rick Tocchet.

“I thought some of the one-on-one drills, he made some nice moves with the puck. That’s the stuff I want to see. But he’s high-energy, big-motor guy. Guys like that, they’re all over the forecheck.”

Playing against Sherwood in last spring’s playoffs, Canucks captain Hughes learned that Sherwood’s playing style means opponents need to always be aware of when the winger’s on the ice.

“He’s a really good player.” Hughes said. “I think he’s got more game than people give him credit for. I’m not the coach, but I think he can play anywhere in the lineup. And I think he’s just a great addition.”

Tocchet also believes Sherwood could have more offensive upside to his game, noting that the Canucks coaching staff has identified some places they want the new addition to work on his game.

“There’s sometimes when he has (the puck), he can slow it down a bit to make a play,” the coach said. “But … I’d rather him have the motor going, and we’ll worry about the other stuff. And he’s a guy you can bounce around on different lines too. So it’s a luxury.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2024.

FREDERICTON – New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative leader disrespected the province’s residents by presenting the death of a Liberal supporter as funny, the party said as it called for Blaine Higgs to apologize.

Higgs drew the party’s ire during remarks made at his Thursday campaign kickoff event in Quispamsis, N.B., held hours after he dissolved the legislature and officially triggered the campaign leading up to the Oct. 21 provincial election.

His speech to party faithful included a second-hand anecdote of a conversation that purportedly took place in 2014 between a party volunteer canvassing for votes and a newly minted supporter. At the time, Higgs was seeking re-election as the legislature member for the Quispamsis riding, which he has represented since 2010.

The conversation, the story went, began when the canvasser was leaving the home of a woman who had just voiced her intention to vote for Higgs.

“(The volunteer) said: ‘Thank you very much. That’s great.’ Then she started walking next door, and the lady said: ‘Oh, you don’t need to go there. She passed away a few weeks ago,'” Higgs said in his retelling of the story. “This campaigner — you know, very passionate individual — said: ‘I’m so sorry. Was she sick long? Or what happened? And the lady just said, ‘Oh, don’t feel too bad. She was a Liberal.'”

“I know that’s not an appropriate joke, but it was funny and it is true,” Higgs concluded.

Hannah Fulton Johnston, executive director of the New Brunswick Liberal Association, condemned Higgs’s anecdote in a statement issued on Friday in which she called the joke distasteful.

“The New Brunswick Liberal Association is calling on Blaine Higgs to apologize for this comment,” it reads.

“Making light of the death of any New Brunswicker is highly inappropriate for anyone and completely unacceptable for the premier of the province.”

Green Party Leader David Coon described the anecdote as disgusting and questioned whether the comment could be passed off as a joke.

“It’s a very dark comment,” he said on Friday.

Higgs, 70, has so far stuck to broadly populist messages as he seeks a third term as New Brunswick’s premier. His key issues so far have included bringing down the harmonized sales tax from 15 to 13 per cent and requiring teachers to get parental consent before they can use the preferred names and pronouns of young students in class.

When asked about the Liberals’ request for an apology, Progressive Conservative Party Executive Director Doug Williams shifted the focus back to past remarks from Liberal Leader Susan Holt and tried to draw a parallel between her and her unpopular federal counterpart.

“If Susan Holt is truly concerned about offensive comments, will she apologize for saying that concerns of parents about their children are ‘BS’? … Will she apologize for saying the Premier acts like a fascist?” the statement reads.

“The media have not paid any attention to these remarks, despite Progressive Conservatives raising them publicly. Just like Justin Trudeau, Susan Holt wants apologies for things that other people have done, and never wants to apologize for her own actions.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2024.

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RICHMOND, B.C. – British Columbia’s election campaign is officially underway, New Democrat Leader David Eby said Saturday at a campaign stop in the Metro Vancouver city of Richmond where he was met by cheering supporters who lined the street.

Eby, who spoke in a crowded room where it appeared every person was wearing the NDP’s colour orange, said B.C. is facing many tough challenges, including affordable housing, public health care, mental health and addictions and the cost of living.

But he pledged to be “laser focused” on tackling the issues.

“We can’t divide each other,” he said. “The only way we solve these problems is by working together. Here’s my commitment to you, to everybody in this room, to all British Columbians: we won’t rest until the job is done.”

B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad kicked off his party’s campaign in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside at the neighbourhood’s CRAB Park, known for its long period of homeless encampments.

Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin signed the writ Saturday for the Oct. 19 vote.

The date, however, didn’t deter political leaders from getting a head start on the campaign.

Eby began his campaign early Friday by getting on the party’s bus and heading straight to the Metro Vancouver city of Surrey, which is expected to be a major battleground for the New Democrats and B.C. Conservatives.

Eby and the NDP’s campaign bus are making several Lower Mainland stops on the first full day of campaigning, including North Vancouver, Langley, Burnaby and Richmond.

CRAB park, where Rustad launched his campaign, is an area of Vancouver where the city recently spent thousands of dollars cleaning up a homeless camp.

Rustad will be on Vancouver Island later Saturday.

Green Leader Sonia Furstenau is in Victoria for what the party said will be its largest canvassing effort to date to connect with voters.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.