White Rock Whalers 2-0 in Round 1 of PJHL playoffs

It’s been a whale of a season for White Rock’s Pacific Junior Hockey League team, who have swept the Aldergrove Ironmen 4-0 in the first round of playoffs for the 2025-2026 season.

The White Rock Whalers finished their season at the top of the Harold Brittain Conference with 74 points, 34 wins, four losses, two overtime losses, and four shootout losses in one of their best — if not the best — seasons. With former pro hockey player David Rutherford at the helm as Whalers head coach and director of personnel, as well as associate coaches Anthony Ast and Jim Vandermeer, who also have professional hockey backgrounds, the team has a wealth of hockey experience in its coaching staff, and it shows.

“It’s been good,” Rutherford said of the regular season and start of the playoffs. “We’ve had a lot of guys have a lot of growth, and I think, more importantly, all the guys really just love being around each other, and that’s translated to our most successful season we’ve ever had. So it’s fun to be a part of something like that.” Rutherford credited the players for putting in the work throughout the entire season, but knows there’s still the rest of the playoffs to go. The Whalers won the first four games of Round 1 against the Ironmen, who finished eighth in the conference, 11-1, 9-1, 10-0 and 7-1, playing the fourth and final game of the series on Saturday (Feb. 21).

They move on to Round 2 of the playoffs with their next opponent yet to be determined at press time. Playing the right way is key, Rutherford said, as well as avoiding bad habits, even if the team is winning. “I think our leadership group has done a good job of trying to tell the guys to really stay checked in … our job is to get all the way — as far as we can — by playing the right way.”

Rutherford, whose company, DJR Hockey, helps develop young hockey players, said the team has a very “next man up” mentality. “So whoever’s in our lineup, it really doesn’t change the way we play,” he said, recalling how “Captain Canada” Sidney Crosby was injured in an Olympic hockey game Tuesday (Feb. 17) in Italy. “A bunch of people messaged me right away and said, ‘Oh, they just lost their leader.’ I said, ‘Well, like, some would look at it that way. I look at it as a chance for someone else to step up.’” Because there is uncertainty throughout the entire PJHL league regarding playoffs since the league split into two tiers, Rutherford said he’s not sure how playoffs will play out, once all the teams in both the Harold Brittain Conference (tier 2) and Tom Shaw Conference (tier 1) play each other until there’s a conference winner. ”We have to win our conference … then (usually) we would play the winner of the other conference. But there’s been so much back-and-forth in regards to what this league is or what’s happening,” Rutherford said. “I just don’t have a full grasp on that … I know our conference has said numerous times we would love the opportunity to play against the Richmond (Sockeyes), Delta (Ice Hawks), Ridge Meadows (Flames) in the final. That’s the goal, but I don’t know how it’ll play out.”

Rutherford, of course, wants the Whalers to make the finals and get a chance to showcase themselves. “Someone’s got to play for the championship this year … it’d be really disappointing if the other conference (winner) just forfeited and didn’t want to play in it. But that’s something that none of us fully know what’s going to happen at the moment, but hopefully — hopefully — we just take care of business, and we get to worry about that situation in four weeks’ time.” Overall, the main goal in White Rock is to develop players to move on, Rutherford noted, no matter where or what level of hockey that means for each player, and no matter what happens in the playoffs.