“It felt weird but it was good to be back.”: Ex-Cougar running wild with Swift Current Broncos

It only took Carlin Dezainde 7:27 to remind Prince George Cougar fans what they used to have in him.

In what will likely be his last stop at the CN Centre, barring a magical playoff run with the Swift Current Broncos, the 20-year-old left it all on the ice, scoring two goals in an 8-3 loss to the Cougars on Tuesday in front of 2,918 fans.

Dezainde received a healthy ovation from the Cougar faithful as some images of him dawning the red, white and black came on the in-house video screen located at Centre Ice.

Smack dab in the middle of a BC Division road trip, the 20-year-old from Calgary admitted heading into the visiting dressing of an arena that once felt like home, felt a little strange.

“It was a little different to be on the other side of things and it felt a little bit weird. It was good to be back and I got to see my old billets and a couple of the guys, I have a lot of good memories here and great relationships.”

“It was great to come back.”

Against his former team 😳

Carlin Dezainde redirects one home to tie the game!@SCBroncos | @UConnMHOC pic.twitter.com/BVZLul8oJB

— Western Hockey League (@TheWHL) January 29, 2025

Such is life in junior hockey, teams who had an overabundance of talent often have big decisions to make the following season, especially when deciding which three twenty-year-old players to keep.

After tallying a career-best 56 points in 51 games last season with the Cougars along with helping them reach game six of the Western Conference Final against the Portland Winterhawks – Dezainde was hotter than a firecracker to begin 2024-25 with PG tallying 10 points in seven games.

In October, Dezainde was sent to Swift Current along with a late-round pick this year in exchange for 19-year-old depth forward Van Eger, a second-round pick in 2025 along with a fourth-rounder in 2027.

It is safe to say Dezainde hit the ground running with his new teammates tallying 43 points in 38 games keeping the Broncos in play for what appears to be a wide-open East Division after a trade deadline sell-job by the Saskatoon Blades.

“It’s a tight race and we have a good group, a solid group. While we didn’t prepare like we would have liked to tonight (Tuesday) we are fast with a lot of skilled guys with a pretty solid back end and good goaltending. When we are playing our game and within our structure we can do some damage,” said Dezainde.

After his WHL tenure wraps up, Dezainde will head to Connecticut and play for the UCONN Huskies, a renowned Division One school.

He added the scholarship opportunity came shortly after the CHL eligibility change south of the border was announced.

“I spoke to a couple of teams before everything became official. We didn’t know what was going to happen as I didn’t have any official offers or anything like that but I spoke to a few teams and once it kind of changed it ramped up quite a bit.”

“It covers everything from living and all of the expenses a Western league team would as well. The school is paid for as well, so I am not really putting out a dime to go there and it’s great hockey there as well and a good education.”

The Swift Current Broncos would like congratulate ’04 F Carlin Dezainde on his NCAA Commitment to the @UConnMHOC program. Congrats Carlin!#WHL pic.twitter.com/itZza3SByx

— Swift Current Broncos (@SCBroncos) November 26, 2024

Like a lot of junior hockey players, Dezainde had to work a little bit harder at his craft to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

After scoring just two goals and ten points in his first two WHL seasons split between the Medicine Hat Tigers and the Cougars, Dezainde’s game began to shine in front of our very eyes reaching 26 points in 2022-23 to 56 points in 51 contests last season.

Dezainde also proved to be valuable on faceoffs winning 523 draws in his last two seasons in PG. This year, he already won 325 draws with 23 games remaining.

“I am playing with confidence and had a lot of development here and took that with me to Swift. I put in a lot of work over the summer and throughout the year to build on that and it’s worked out for me.”

Dezainde dawned the Cougar colours for 182 games after being acquired in a three-way trade involving the Saskatoon Blades and Medicine Hat Tigers.

The 20-year-old along with Cayden Glover came from the Gas City along with three draft picks in the December 2021 transaction.

Two of those draft picks turned out to be Dermot Johnson and Patrick Sopiarz.

Going the other way was Kyren Gronick (Saskatoon) and a fifth round selection in 2025 (Medicine Hat).

Swift Current concludes its road trip tomorrow (Friday) in Kamloops followed by a Saturday night dust-up with the Kelowna Rockets.

The Broncos (24-19-1-1) sit six points back of the Prince Albert Raiders (26-15-3-1) for first place in the East Division.