BURSTWhite Rock’s junior hockey team is scoring on the ice — and online — so far this season.
The Pacific Junior Hockey League squad, who are still sitting at the top of the Harold Brittain Conference standings with 35 points and a 19-17-1-1 start to the season (as of Monday, Nov. 24), are being featured in a new YouTube docuseries, Next Shift, that follows the White Rock Whalers as they embark on their journey in the 2025/26 PJHL season — one shift at a time.
Whalers head coach and director of personnel David Rutherford, a former pro hockey player himself, explained he has a good friends with an executive director from L.A. who wondered if the team had ever thought about filming what the season is like for junior hockey players.
“He said it’d be really interesting with the shifts in the junior landscape, and that it might be really cool to like see what (the Whalers) are doing with all of you guys being ex-professionals,” Rutherford recalled, noting that associate coaches Anthony Ast and Jim Vandermeer also have professional hockey backgrounds, with Ast formerly playing with the WHL’s Vancouver Giants, Medicine Hat Tigers and pro-level hockey in Germany, while Vandermeer is a veteran NHL defenseman who has played for teams including the Philadelphia Flyers, Chicago Blackhawks, and Calgary Flames.
Rutherford noted that most junior hockey teams don’t have a budget to bring in professionals to film behind the scenes footage, but having a friend with such expertise, as well as some help from his coaching colleagues and his wife, helped make the YouTube docuseries happen.
“It gave us a chance to reallyget behind the scenes of what you really need to do daily if you want to be a professional … I think what’s been kind of challenging is a lot of (players), coming from different programs — they’ve never been asked to do everything, every day,” Rutherford explained, adding that he was taught that professional hockey players show up and do the work, every day — and so too, should amateur players.
“(We’re) trying to teach kids to be professionals now. So you kind of get some really real good stories in it, and then you also get some of the hard truth of junior hockey — if you miss things, there’s there’s 24 other guys that want to play,” he said. “I think (where some) people really struggle coming from minor hockey to junior, is that in junior, you have 25 guys but only 18 can dress. Where in minor hockey, if you miss (a game), dad just calls and you’re on the line at the next thing. It’s just so different. “
The first Next Shift episode, which featured training camp, aired Friday on YouTube under DJR Hockey, and had already racked up close to 1,000 views by Tuesday morning (Nov. 25); viewers can subscribe to DJR Hockey on YouTube (free) for full episodes, behind-the-scenes moments, and player stories that show what it really takes to make it in the game.
“Our whole goal is, we want to be a premier place to develop players to move on … I know the standard has to be so high, every day, if they’re even going to get a sniff, and the idea is to teach them now, so when they get their opportunity that they’re ready and they don’t flounder it,” said Rutherford.
“Coaches — and everyone — wants these players to have every opportunity … I really want to move guys on. Our main goal (isn’t) winning games, we’re trying to develop players to play at a higher level. And then if you do things the right way, generally success follows, which is kind of what we saw the first half of this season.”
Find the docuseries on YouTube at youtube.com/watch?v=-xjJiz87YeY
For more information about the Whalers or for game tickets, visit whiterockwhalers.ca