The trade window for junior A hockey in Canada opened on Saturday, and by the end of the day, the Richardson Pioneer Weyburn Red Wings had announced a roster move. They acquired 05-born forward Ty McKay from the Humboldt Broncos in exchange for a player development fee and a second-round draft pick in the 2025 draft.
“Ty’s a very, very quick player, very skilled,” Red Wings head coach and general manager Cody Mapes said of the newest addition to the roster. “He’s going to bring some depth to our scoring.”
Mapes added that McKay is coming into his second year as a junior player, and coming off a half-a-point a game last season, he could see that number taking a significant jump.
The Red Wings also finalized the future considerations coming to Weyburn in the deal that sent forward Elijah Anderson to the Battlefords North Stars at the January deadline last season. The team had already gotten goaltender Justen Maric in that deal, and the future consideration coming back to Weyburn is defenceman Josh Karman.
“He’s going to help our backend bring some experience,” Mapes described of the 19-year-old. “He had 15 points last year in a limited role as an 18-year-old on a very good team, and so we expect him to come in and be a top pair guy and be a guy that provides leadership.”
The acquisition of the two players wasn’t the only announcement from the Red Wings over the weekend. It was also announced a new assistant coach will be joining Mapes behind the bench – Casey O’Brien.
“I’ve got to know Casey quite a bit over the last six or seven years, even more so over the last two years here he’s worked with us in a skills coach capacity, and so now bringing him on more of a full-time role is going to be great,” Mapes said of the move.
O’Brien was previously an assistant coach with the Yorkton Terriers, and also spent time as a head coach there. He was with the team in 2014 when they won the national championship.
“That’s something that not every coaching staff has, not every team has, and so we’ll definitely lean on him for that experience,” Mapes said of the two league titles and one national title that O’Brien has.
For Mapes aside from working the phones ahead of the 2024-25 season, he will be getting ready for the upcoming league AGM, which is scheduled for Nipawin this weekend. The SJHL Draft will be taking place on June 11th, and scheduling meetings will happen after that.