[{"id":165964,"date":"2026-06-15T18:53:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T22:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165964"},"modified":"2026-06-15T18:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T22:53:16","slug":"portland-signs-avery-laliberte-to-whl-scholarship-and-development-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/portland-signs-avery-laliberte-to-whl-scholarship-and-development-agreement","title":{"rendered":"Portland Signs Avery Laliberte to WHL Scholarship and Development Agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Portland, Ore.<\/b> \u2013\u00a0The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club announced today the signing of defenseman Avery Laliberte to a WHL Scholarship and Development Agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Laliberte, born 2006, joins Portland after a season with the Waterloo Black Hawks of the USHL. In 62 games during the 2025-26 season, the Lorette, Manitoba native scored three goals and seven assists for ten points. Before his time in the USHL, Laliberte played for the Niverville Nighthawks of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League for two seasons, where he played in 106 games.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-foot-2, 196-pound blueliner also won a bronze medal with Team Canada West at the 2024 World Junior-A Challenge in Alberta.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to the Rose City, Avery!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><i>The Winterhawks trust <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.riversidepayments.com\/\"><i>Riverside Payments<\/i><\/a><i> for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Portland, Ore. \u2013\u00a0The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club announced today the signing of defenseman Avery Laliberte to a WHL Scholarship and Development Agreement. Laliberte, born 2006, joins Portland after a season with the Waterloo Black Hawks of the USHL. In 62 games during the 2025-26 season, the Lorette, Manitoba native scored three goals and seven assists&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":165977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":[{"term_id":991,"name":"Avery Laliberte","slug":"avery-laliberte","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":991,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"2"},{"term_id":876,"name":"WHL Scholarship &amp; Development Agreement","slug":"whl-scholarship-development-agreement","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":876,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":20,"filter":"raw","term_order":"111"}],"class_list":["post-165964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-avery-laliberte","tag-whl-scholarship-development-agreement","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/06\/15181027\/Signed-long.jpeg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":165968,"date":"2026-06-15T15:03:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165968"},"modified":"2026-06-15T15:17:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:17:20","slug":"winterhawk-alumnus-seth-jarvis-wins-the-stanley-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/winterhawk-alumnus-seth-jarvis-wins-the-stanley-cup","title":{"rendered":"Winterhawk Alumnus Seth Jarvis wins the Stanley Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Portland, Ore.<\/b> \u2013 The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club is proud to announce that alumnus Seth Jarvis won the Stanley Cup Sunday night, as his Carolina Hurricanes bested the Vegas Golden Knights in six games. Jarvis becomes the 13th former Winterhawks to have his name etched on the Cup.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Confetti snow angels with Seth Jarvis and Friends \ud83c\udf8a\ud83c\udfc6 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dpopzJ8BKN\">pic.twitter.com\/dpopzJ8BKN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Sportsnet\/status\/2066377499207225555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 15, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Jarvis, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, played in Portland from 2017 to 2021. In 154 games for the Hawks, Jarvis tallied 73 goals, 93 assists, and 166 points. The former Portland alternate captain was drafted by Carolina 13th overall in the 2020 NHL Draft and made his NHL debut at the start of the 2021-22 campaign. Since then, he has been a staple in Raleigh.<\/p>\n<p>Jarvis torched his way through the 2025-26 NHL regular season, scoring 32 goals and 34 assists for 66 points in 71 games. In 19 playoff games, he added four more goals and seven helpers for 11 points. His most memorable goal of the postseason came in Game Two of the Finals, when he blasted the overtime game winner to level the series 1-1.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">SETH FREAKIN&#39; JARVIS \ud83d\udd0a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/StanleyCup?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#StanleyCup<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>We want to see your reaction to the <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Canes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Canes<\/a> tying this series up in overtime! <\/p>\n<p>Send your reactions here \u27a1\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/spRr6pVPsC\">https:\/\/t.co\/spRr6pVPsC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oCBBDLczUE\">pic.twitter.com\/oCBBDLczUE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NHL (@NHL) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NHL\/status\/2062748350613463448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, Jarvis became <a href=\"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/seven-former-winterhawks-named-to-2026-winter-olympic-rosters\/\">one of seven former Winterhawks<\/a> to suit up for his home nation at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. A member of Team Canada, Jarvis took home silver on the world stage. Just four months later, \u2018Jarvy\u2019 was once again at center stage with his Hurricanes, winning their second Cup in franchise history.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">JARVY. WINS. THE. CUP. \ud83c\udfc6<\/p>\n<p>Winterhawks alumni Seth Jarvis is a Stanley Cup Champion!<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/PortlandToThePros?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#PortlandToThePros<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/En5V0N8Fk2\">pic.twitter.com\/En5V0N8Fk2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Portland Winterhawks (@pdxwinterhawks) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/pdxwinterhawks\/status\/2066354936951296025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 15, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As Jarvis lofted the 34.5-pound silver memorial to hockey immortality above his head, he joined the likes of Seth Jones, Andrew Ference, and Mike Vernon as Portland alumni-turned-NHL Champions. Jarvis became the sixth player in NHL history to capture the Stanley Cup in the same season he earned a silver medal with NHL player participation at the Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>Congratulations to Seth on this incredible accomplishment!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><i>The Winterhawks trust<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.riversidepayments.com%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cbrynns%40winterhawks.com%7Ca2855c63662e4149c07b08dccd4b2106%7C4e14211535b04a158f65d14bf1a1bc52%7C0%7C0%7C638610969765791090%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=fU4IvWJVBwtosXyWqz6qqqAVgTotGDK8SRqrptAVQPE%3D&amp;reserved=0\"> <i>Riverside Payments<\/i><\/a><i> for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carolina Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis became the 13th Winterhawk alumnus to win the Stanley Cup with a 4-2 series win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":165970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":[{"term_id":591,"name":"Portland To The Pros","slug":"portland-to-the-pros","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":597,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":96,"filter":"raw","term_order":"609"},{"term_id":492,"name":"Seth Jarvis","slug":"seth-jarvis","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":497,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":38,"filter":"raw","term_order":"724"},{"term_id":575,"name":"Stanley Cup","slug":"stanley-cup","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":581,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","term_order":"753"}],"class_list":["post-165968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-portland-to-the-pros","tag-seth-jarvis","tag-stanley-cup","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/06\/15150218\/JarvyGraphic.v2.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":165962,"date":"2026-06-12T12:56:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165962"},"modified":"2026-06-12T12:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T16:59:14","slug":"griffin-darby-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/griffin-darby-trade","title":{"rendered":"Winterhawks Acquire First Round Import Pick, along with three WHL Prospect Draft Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Portland, Ore. &#8211; <\/b>The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club announced today the acquisition of a 2027 First-Round CHL Import Draft pick, as well as a 2028 Second-Round, a 2027 Fifth-Round, and a 2028 Sixth-Round pick in the WHL Prospects Draft from the Moose Jaw Warriors in exchange for defenseman Griffin Darby.<\/p>\n<p>Moose Jaw\u2019s 2028 second-round pick originally belonged to the Lethbridge Hurricanes.<\/p>\n<p>Darby, born in 2008, joins Moose Jaw after two seasons in Portland. The Swift Current, Saskatchewan, native played in 110 games, scoring two goals and recording 18 assists for 20 points.<\/p>\n<p>The Winterhawks organization would like to thank Griffin for his time in the Rose City, as we wish him all the best with the Warriors.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><i>The Winterhawks trust<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.riversidepayments.com%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cbrynns%40winterhawks.com%7Ca2855c63662e4149c07b08dccd4b2106%7C4e14211535b04a158f65d14bf1a1bc52%7C0%7C0%7C638610969765791090%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=fU4IvWJVBwtosXyWqz6qqqAVgTotGDK8SRqrptAVQPE%3D&amp;reserved=0\"> <i>Riverside Payments<\/i><\/a><i> for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Portland Winterhawks acquire an Import Draft pick and three WHL Draft picks in a trade with the Moose Jaw Warriors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":165967,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":[{"term_id":693,"name":"Griffin Darby","slug":"griffin-darby","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":702,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":7,"filter":"raw","term_order":"375"}],"class_list":["post-165962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-griffin-darby","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/06\/12125711\/trade-long.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":165945,"date":"2026-06-01T13:51:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T17:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165945"},"modified":"2026-06-01T14:00:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T18:00:39","slug":"jake-gustafson-set-to-participate-in-2026-nhl-draft-combine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/jake-gustafson-set-to-participate-in-2026-nhl-draft-combine","title":{"rendered":"Jake Gustafson set to participate in 2026 NHL Draft Combine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club is proud to recognize Jake Gustafson for attending the 2026 NHL Draft Combine in Buffalo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 2008-born forward from San Jose, California, is one of 90 top-ranked draft-eligible players set to participate in events over the next several days.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Gustafson\u2019s first season with the Winterhawks, he appeared in all 68 regular season-games and four playoff games, while registering 13 goals, 12 assists, and 25 points.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He scored his first WHL goal on October 4 and netted a hat trick on November 21.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first round of the 2026 NHL Draft will be held at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, with the first round beginning at 4 p.m. PT and Rounds 2-7 on June 27 at 8 a.m. PT.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Gustafson is one of six 2025-26 Winterhawks players to be named to NHL Central Scouting&#8217;s Final Rankings. Will McLaughlin, Jordan Duguay, Reed Brown, Nathan Brown, and Ond\u0159ej \u0160t\u011bbet\u00e1k also joined Gustafson on the list.<\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cover Photo Credit: Kyle Smutzki<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><em>The Winterhawks trust\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.riversidepayments.com\/\">Riverside Payments<\/a>\u00a0for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Portland Winterhawks forward Jake Gustafson is set to participate in the 2026 NHL Draft Combine in Buffalo in advance of the 2026 NHL Draft. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":562,"featured_media":165946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":[{"term_id":990,"name":"2026 NHL Draft","slug":"2026-nhl-draft","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":990,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"3"},{"term_id":946,"name":"Jake Gustafson","slug":"jake-gustafson","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":946,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw","term_order":"45"}],"class_list":["post-165945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-2026-nhl-draft","tag-jake-gustafson","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/06\/01134944\/jake-long.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/562"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":165934,"date":"2026-05-22T14:57:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165934"},"modified":"2026-05-22T14:57:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:57:38","slug":"winterhawks-sign-cullen-stephenson-to-scholarship-and-development-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/winterhawks-sign-cullen-stephenson-to-scholarship-and-development-agreement","title":{"rendered":"Winterhawks Sign Cullen Stephenson to Scholarship and Development Agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Portland, Ore.<\/b> &#8211; The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club announced today the signing of forward <a href=\"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/winterhawks-draft-cullen-stephenson-10th-overall-in-2026-whl-prospects-draft\/\">Cullen Stephenson<\/a> to a WHL Scholarship and Development Agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Stephenson, of Warman, Saskatchewan, was selected with the 10th overall pick in the first round of the 2026 WHL Prospects Draft. With his selection, Stephenson became the highest Winterhawks draft pick since 2009.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWe are thrilled to welcome Cullen Stephenson to Portland,\u201d Winterhawks President and General Manager Mike Johnston said. \u201cCullen is a leader on and off the ice. He is a highly-skilled player who we feel has the potential to be an impact player in this league.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In 25 games with the Warman Wildcats U15 AA team, the 2011-born skater tallied an immense 88 points from 38 goals and 50 assists. The forward also suited up for the Moose Jaw Warriors U18 AAA side for two games \u2013 scoring twice and assisting once.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Matt Davidson was the one who said that he has a lot of similarities to Nate Danielson,&#8221; Head Saskatchewan Scout Darwin Bennett said. &#8220;Sven [B\u00e4rtschi] watched some tape and compared him to former teammate Ryan Johansen, so I think he&#8217;s that type of player for sure. He makes other players better, and he\u2019s got a high compete\u2026a real solid team player.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Playing in the WHL runs in the Stephenson family; Cullen\u2019s father, Shay, won an Ed Chynoweth Cup and Memorial Cup as a member of the 2001 Red Deer Rebels.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to the Rose City, Cullen!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><i>The Winterhawks trust\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.riversidepayments.com\/\"><i>Riverside Payments<\/i><\/a><i>\u00a0for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Portland Winterhawks have signed 2026 WHL Prospects Draft 10th overall pick Cullen Stephenson to a Scholarship and Development Agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":165937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":[{"term_id":980,"name":"Cullen Stephenson","slug":"cullen-stephenson","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":980,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","term_order":"13"},{"term_id":876,"name":"WHL Scholarship &amp; Development Agreement","slug":"whl-scholarship-development-agreement","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":876,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":20,"filter":"raw","term_order":"111"}],"class_list":["post-165934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-cullen-stephenson","tag-whl-scholarship-development-agreement","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/05\/22142036\/Cullen-Stephenson-Signed-Graphic-Final.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":165924,"date":"2026-05-14T11:49:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T15:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165924"},"modified":"2026-05-14T11:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T15:49:16","slug":"winterhawks-sign-stevie-grumley-to-whl-scholarship-and-development-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/winterhawks-sign-stevie-grumley-to-whl-scholarship-and-development-agreement","title":{"rendered":"Winterhawks Sign Stevie Grumley to WHL Scholarship and Development Agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Portland, Ore. <\/b>\u2013 The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club today announced the signing of defenseman Stevie Grumley to a WHL Scholarship and Development Agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Grumley, a 2007-born blueliner, joins Portland after two seasons with the Sherwood Park Crusaders of the BCHL (British Columbia Hockey League). In 88 regular-season games, Grumley tallied 18 goals and 45 assists for 63 points. The Manhattan Beach, California, native has also played in 12 playoff games this season, piling on two goals and five assists.<\/p>\n<p>A dynamic and attacking-minded player, Grumley tallied the eighth most points among BCHL defensemen with 41 during the 2025-26 season. He was also in a three-way tie for the league lead for defensemen goals with 17. Grumley was named a BCHL All-Star this season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are excited to add Stevie to our group for next year. He was one of the top transition defensemen in the BCHL last year,&#8221; Winterhawks President and General Manager Mike Johnston said.<\/p>\n<p>Before his time in the BCHL, Grumley played in the Los Angeles Jr. Kings system between his 13U and 16U seasons. Grumley won a USA Hockey 15U Tier I national championship with the Jr. Kings during the 2022-23 season.<\/p>\n<p>The 5&#8217;8&#8243;, 150-pound defenseman was originally drafted by the Regina Pats in the second round of the 2022 U.S. Prospect Draft, 42nd overall.<\/p>\n<p>Grumley, the team captain for Sherwood Park during the 2025-26 season, will help bolster an already strong defensive core in Portland.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><em>The Winterhawks trust\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.riversidepayments.com\/\">Riverside Payments<\/a>\u00a0for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Portland Winterhawks have signed defenseman Stevie Grumley to a WHL Scholarship and Development Agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":165927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":[{"term_id":989,"name":"Stevie Grumley","slug":"stevie-grumley","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":989,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"4"}],"class_list":["post-165924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-stevie-grumley","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/05\/13121256\/stevie-long.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":165918,"date":"2026-05-08T14:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165918"},"modified":"2026-05-08T14:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T18:06:15","slug":"mike-johnston-continues-with-hockey-canadas-program-of-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/mike-johnston-continues-with-hockey-canadas-program-of-excellence","title":{"rendered":"Mike Johnston continues with Hockey Canada&#8217;s Program of Excellence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Portland, Ore. \u2013<\/b>\u00a0The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club is proud to recognize President and General Manager\u00a0<strong>Mike Johnston<\/strong> once again being <a href=\"https:\/\/hockeycanada.ca\/en-ca\/news\/management-group-announced-2026-27-poe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">named to Hockey Canada\u2019s Program of Excellence Management Group for the 2026-27 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Johnston returns for his second consecutive stint with the POE, guiding the under-17 program through the 2026 U17 World Challenge in Oakville, Ontario. He is joined at the POE by Yanick Lemay of Drummondville in the QMJHL and Dave Brown of Erie in the OHL.<\/p>\n<p>A native of Dartmouth, NS, Johnston has an extensive history with Hockey Canada. He won a gold medal at the 1994, 1995, and 1996 World Juniors and recently served as an assistant coach at the 2025 World Juniors. He\u2019s also coached or served as general manager of Team Canada at the IIHF Mens\u2019 World Championship eight times, as well as other international events like the Olympics, Spengler Cup, and the U18 and U17 World Championships.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are very pleased to have Mike, Dave, and Yanick return to the POE Management Group,&#8221; POE general manager Alan Millar said. &#8220;All three individuals bring great leadership, CHL management, and international experience to our National Teams. Mike, Dave, and Yanick will play a significant role in player evaluations, team build, and establishing the standard for culture and expectations across all our programs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Day-to-day operations for the POE management group include assisting in coach and player selections, supporting the coaching staffs, and providing input during camps and tournaments throughout the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Program of Excellence is overseen by Katherine Henderson, Hockey Canada\u2019s president and chief executive officer; Misha Donskov, vice-president of hockey operations and men\u2019s national teams coach; Scott Salmond, senior vice-president of high performance and hockey operations; Benoit Roy, director of hockey operations; Dan MacKenzie, CHL president; Bryan Crawford, OHL commissioner; Mario Cecchini, QMJHL commissioner; Dan Near, WHL commissioner, and Alan Millar.<\/p>\n<div id=\"dsk-box-ad-b\" data-google-query-id=\"CMfCzY6DqpQDFXu9fwQdZOoL0A\">Congratulations, Mike!<\/div>\n<div data-google-query-id=\"CMfCzY6DqpQDFXu9fwQdZOoL0A\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><em>The Winterhawks trust\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.riversidepayments.com\/\">Riverside Payments<\/a>\u00a0for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Portland Winterhawks President and General Manager returns for second consecutive stint with Hockey Canada&#8217;s Program of Excellence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":562,"featured_media":165919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":false,"class_list":["post-165918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/05\/08130939\/JohnstonExtended-1920x1080-1.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/562"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":165915,"date":"2026-05-07T18:43:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165915"},"modified":"2026-05-07T18:50:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:50:20","slug":"winterhawks-add-nine-players-during-2026-whl-prospects-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/winterhawks-add-nine-players-during-2026-whl-prospects-draft","title":{"rendered":"Winterhawks add nine players during 2026 WHL Prospects Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Portland, Ore.<\/strong> \u2013 The Portland Winterhawks made nine selections during the 2026 WHL Prospects Draft, including six forwards, two defensemen, and one goaltender.<\/p>\n<p>Players eligible for the 2026 WHL Prospects Drafter were 2011-born players residing in Western Canada and the Western U.S.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t say enough about the scouts,&#8221; Head Coach Kyle Gustafson said. &#8220;Just the time and effort that they put in throughout the year, identifying players. They truly are the lifeline of our organization, and I thought they did a phenomenal job. This draft also wouldn&#8217;t be possible without the work and dedication of Matt Davidson; he was a huge part of today&#8217;s success.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round 1, Pick 20 &#8211; Cullen Stephenson, F<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With its highest draft pick since the 2009 draft \u2013 when the Hawks took Derrick Pouloit first overall \u2013 Portland selected Cullen Stephenson from Warman, Sask. Playing for the Warman Wildcats U15 AA squad this past season, the 5&#8217;11, 140-pound forward compiled 88 total points behind 38 goals and 50 assists. The WHL is familiar territory to the Stephenson family, as Cullen&#8217;s father, Shay, won the 2001 league title and Memorial Cup with the Red Deer Rebels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a highly skilled winger,\u201d Head Saskatchewan Scout Darwin Bennett said. \u201cHe can skate, he makes plays, he\u2019s got a good shot, he\u2019s an unselfish player. He makes other players better, and he\u2019s got a high compete\u2026a real solid team player.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round 2, Pick 38 &#8211; Aidan Potash, D<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the second round, the Winterhawks took defenseman Aidan Potash out of Kelowna, B.C. In the Okanagan Rockets system this season, Potash skated in ten games for the U18 AAA team, tallying one assist. Gifted with a lofty 6&#8217;2&#8243;, 181-pound frame, Potash combines size and speed that will make him an impact player on the Portland blueline. Potash was named as a BCEHL U15 All-Star, and won BCEHL titles at the U15 and U18 levels.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round 3, Pick 56 &#8211; Arjun Mangadu, F<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hailing from Livermore, California, Arjun Mangadu was a goal-scoring machine at Mount St. Charles Academy in Rhode Island. In 59 games with the 14U AAA team, Mangadu lasered home 58 goals, adding 45 assists for a 103 point campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Mangadu recently participated at the Cwench World Invite \u2013 a premier tournament for 14-year-old boys \u2013 for Team USA West. In eight games he scored six goals and four assists for ten points.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round 4, Pick 79 &#8211; Emmett Abel, F<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Portland added another forward with Emmett Abel in the fourth round. Playing with the Northern Alberta Xtreme U15 Prep team, Abel fired 15 goals and 26 assists for 41 points in 28 games played.<\/p>\n<p>Abel stands at 5&#8217;7&#8243; and 146-pounds and showcases a fast style of play.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round 5, Pick 97 &#8211; Easton Scott, F<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From the Lone Star State to the Rose City, Easton Scott piled on the points with the Dallas Stars Elite 14U AAA program. In 58 total games this season, the San Antonio native scored 37 goals and 40 assists for 77 points.<\/p>\n<p>The 6&#8217;0, 163-pound forward will turn 15 later this month and will bring size and a multi-faceted game to the WHL.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round 5, Pick 109 &#8211; Kacy Turberfield, F<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Continuing a dense stretch of picks, the Winterhawks landed Kacy Turberfield out of Meadow Lake, Sask. Turberfield showed both a willingness to shoot the puck for results and the skill to distribute when needed.<\/p>\n<p>Listed at 5&#8217;9, 181-pounds, Turberfield secured 36 total points from 21 goals and 15 assists with the North West Stars U15 AA team in the SAAHL.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round 6, Pick 117, Nathan Johnson, D<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Portland took its second defenseman of the draft with its seventh pick. The Edmonton, Alberta native possesses an uncanny ability to find teammates on the opposite side of the ice for goal-scoring opportunities. However, Johnson is not afraid to shoot the puck, firing home six goals and 12 assists for 18 points in a 28-game calendar for RINK HA Kelowna U15 Prep.<\/p>\n<p>A 5&#8217;10, 161-pound blueliner, Johnson combines a wicked shot and great vision for a 200-foot game.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round 9, Pick 189, Cohen Spencer, G<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After a 72-pick hiatus, the Hawks were back on the board with a goalie selection. Cohen Spencer joins the Hawks from the Calgary Edge School U15 Prep team. In 16 games this season, Spencer has posted a 3.98 GAA, a 0.881 save-percentage, and a 9-8-0 record.<\/p>\n<p>The 5&#8217;10, 130-pound netminder from Rocky View, Alberta is the fourth netminder drafted by the Hawks in the last three years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Round 9, Pick 194, James Butterwick, F<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Portland&#8217;s draft-capping selection, Butterwick plays a tenacious brand of hockey. Skating in 30 games with the Calgary Edge School U15 Prep squad, Butterwick lit the lamp for 20 goals and 15 assists for 35 points.<\/p>\n<p>Butterwick can connect on crucial passes and find paths to the cage in any situation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It seems like we got a little bit of everything,&#8221; Gustafson said. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got an amazing amount of skill, some high-character players, some players that really represent competitive traits. We are really thrilled with the group we have!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Keep an eye on Winterhawks social platforms and winterhawks.com for more draft coverage over the coming days!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><em>The Winterhawks trust\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.riversidepayments.com\/\">Riverside Payments<\/a>\u00a0for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Portland, Ore. \u2013 The Portland Winterhawks made nine selections during the 2026 WHL Prospects Draft, including six forwards, two defensemen, and one goaltender. Players eligible for the 2026 WHL Prospects Drafter were 2011-born players residing in Western Canada and the Western U.S. &#8220;You can&#8217;t say enough about the scouts,&#8221; Head Coach Kyle Gustafson said. &#8220;Just&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":165916,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":[{"term_id":987,"name":"Cohen Spencer","slug":"cohen-spencer","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":987,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"5"},{"term_id":988,"name":"James Butterwick","slug":"james-butterwick","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":988,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"6"},{"term_id":982,"name":"Arjun Mangadu","slug":"arjun-mangadu","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":982,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"7"},{"term_id":983,"name":"Emmett Abel","slug":"emmett-abel","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":983,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"8"},{"term_id":984,"name":"Easton Scott","slug":"easton-scott","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":984,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"9"},{"term_id":985,"name":"Kacy Turberfield","slug":"kacy-turberfield","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":985,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"10"},{"term_id":986,"name":"Nathan Johnson","slug":"nathan-johnson","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":986,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"11"},{"term_id":981,"name":"Aidan Potash","slug":"aidan-potash","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":981,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"12"},{"term_id":980,"name":"Cullen Stephenson","slug":"cullen-stephenson","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":980,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","term_order":"13"},{"term_id":979,"name":"2026 WHL Prospects Draft","slug":"2026-whl-prospects-draft","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":979,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","term_order":"14"}],"class_list":["post-165915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-cohen-spencer","tag-james-butterwick","tag-arjun-mangadu","tag-emmett-abel","tag-easton-scott","tag-kacy-turberfield","tag-nathan-johnson","tag-aidan-potash","tag-cullen-stephenson","tag-2026-whl-prospects-draft","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/05\/07180817\/Recap-graphic-web.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":165905,"date":"2026-05-07T01:44:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T05:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165905"},"modified":"2026-05-21T14:38:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:38:31","slug":"winterhawks-draft-cullen-stephenson-10th-overall-in-2026-whl-prospects-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/winterhawks-draft-cullen-stephenson-10th-overall-in-2026-whl-prospects-draft","title":{"rendered":"Winterhawks draft Cullen Stephenson 10th overall in 2026 WHL Prospects Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Portland, Ore. \u2013<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club is proud to announce the selection of forward Cullen Stephenson with the tenth overall selection in today\u2019s 2026 WHL Prospects Draft.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">During the 2025-26 season, the Warman, Saskatchewan, native played for the Warman Wildcats U15 AA, where he registered 38 goals, 50 assists, and 88 points in 25 games. Stephenson then added another 20 points in seven playoff games.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He\u2019s a highly skilled winger,&#8221; Head <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saskatchewan <\/span>Scout Darwin Bennett said. &#8220;He can skate, he makes plays, he\u2019s got a good shot, he\u2019s an unselfish player. He makes other players better, and he\u2019s got a high compete\u2026a real solid team player.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Stephenson earned comparisons to former Winterhawks Ryan Johansen and Nate Danielson from members of the Portland staff.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This marks the fourth time the Winterhawks have selected tenth overall. Previous selections include Joey Tetarenko (1993), Colton Sceviour (2004), and Riley Boychuk (2006).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Winterhawks will continue to add to their prospect group during the second day of the 2026 WHL Prospects Draft, which takes place Thursday beginning at 9:00 A.M. PT.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Portland\u2019s next selection comes in the second round, 38th overall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fans can follow the action online by clicking <a href=\"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl\/draft\/whl\/2026\/\">here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Players eligible for the 2026 WHL Prospects Draft are 2011-born players who reside in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Players not selected in the Prospects Draft will remain eligible to be listed by WHL Clubs at any time thereafter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><i>The Winterhawks trust\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.riversidepayments.com\/\"><i>Riverside Payments<\/i><\/a><i>\u00a0for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Portland, Ore. \u2013 The Portland Winterhawks Hockey Club is proud to announce the selection of forward Cullen Stephenson with the tenth overall selection in today\u2019s 2026 WHL Prospects Draft. During the 2025-26 season, the Warman, Saskatchewan, native played for the Warman Wildcats U15 AA, where he registered 38 goals, 50 assists, and 88 points in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":562,"featured_media":165908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":[{"term_id":980,"name":"Cullen Stephenson","slug":"cullen-stephenson","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":980,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","term_order":"13"},{"term_id":979,"name":"2026 WHL Prospects Draft","slug":"2026-whl-prospects-draft","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":979,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","term_order":"14"},{"term_id":580,"name":"WHL Prospects Draft","slug":"whl-prospects-draft","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":586,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":22,"filter":"raw","term_order":"872"}],"class_list":["post-165905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-cullen-stephenson","tag-2026-whl-prospects-draft","tag-whl-prospects-draft","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/05\/06214703\/First-Round-Pick-Cull-Stephenson.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/562"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":165895,"date":"2026-05-04T15:23:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:23:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/?p=165895"},"modified":"2026-05-04T15:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:28:12","slug":"winterhawks-2026-whl-draft-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/article\/winterhawks-2026-whl-draft-preview","title":{"rendered":"Winterhawks 2026 WHL Draft Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following the 15th consecutive season of playoff hockey in Portland, the Winterhawks will look to add some new faces to the organization at the 2026 WHL Prospects Draft. With a young core of returning players that featured 14 rookies, this upcoming week promises to be a busy and exciting one for President and General Manager Mike Johnston and Head Coach Kyle Gustafson.<\/p>\n<p>The draft is scheduled for Wednesday, May 6, and Thursday, May 7, with the first round taking place on the first day and all subsequent rounds on the second day.<\/p>\n<p>The Winterhawks currently possess 13 draft picks, including the 10th overall in the first round \u2013 the first first-round selection since 2024 when the Hawks selected Jordin St. Louis 20th overall. This is also Portland&#8217;s best draft position since 2016, when the Hawks held the ninth overall pick. Portland last had the 10th overall pick in 2006 when it selected Riley Boychuk. The Winterhawks hold six picks in the first five rounds.<\/p>\n<table style=\"width: 25.8587%;border-collapse: collapse;border-style: solid;border-color: #000000;height: 308px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">Round<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">Pick<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">1<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">2<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">38 (From BDN)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">3<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">56<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">4<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">79<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">5<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">97 (From MJ)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">5<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">109 (From KEL)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">9<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">189 (From MJ)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">9<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">194<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">11<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">240<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">12<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">263<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">13<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">286<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">14<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">309<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr style=\"height: 22px\">\n<td style=\"width: 13.2252%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">15<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 12.6352%;text-align: center;height: 22px\">332<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Many teams have jockeyed for picks in the opening round, with 13 of the 23 picks having changed hands. Portland&#8217;s second, fifth, sixth, and seventh picks were all acquired from another team in the WHL.<\/p>\n<p>Strong players can be found in every round of the draft. Former Winterhawks captain Kyle Chyzowski was selected in the third round, 58th overall, back in 2019, while forward Marcus Nguyen was taken in the 11th round, 234th overall, that same year. Current Portland standouts Kyle McDonough (2022 2nd round, 40th overall) and Jordan Duguay (2023 2nd round, 39th overall) both got their starts in the Prospects Draft \u2013 those two combined for 93 points this past season.<\/p>\n<p>Portland looks to build off an impressive list of draftees taken in last year&#8217;s WHL Prospects Draft, including Trevor Toyne, Crewe Schimnowski, and Kohen Ruedig.<\/p>\n<p>The WHL has eliminated the U.S. Priority Draft, shifting the Prospects Draft to include all players in the United States and Canada. Eligible players for this year&#8217;s draft will be the 2011-born coalition of talent.<\/p>\n<p>The first round of the draft will be shown for free on Victory+ at 5 p.m. Pacific Time, with a pre-draft show commencing at 4:30 p.m. For complete coverage of the 2026 WHL Prospect Drafts, visit WHL.ca.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">\u2013<\/p>\n<p><i>The Winterhawks trust\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.riversidepayments.com\/\"><i>Riverside Payments<\/i><\/a><i> for all of their credit card processing as the team\u2019s official credit card processors.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following the 15th consecutive season of playoff hockey in Portland, the Winterhawks will look to add some new faces to the organization at the 2026 WHL Prospects Draft. With a young core of returning players that featured 14 rookies, this upcoming week promises to be a busy and exciting one for President and General Manager&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":609,"featured_media":165899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"article","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[832],"tags":[{"term_id":979,"name":"2026 WHL Prospects Draft","slug":"2026-whl-prospects-draft","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":979,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","term_order":"14"}],"class_list":["post-165895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-2026-whl-prospects-draft","category-832","description-off"],"acf":[],"featured_image":["https:\/\/media.chl.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/67\/2026\/05\/04144252\/WHLDraftPreview.jpg",1920,1080,false],"hide_from_app_feed":false,"video":false,"gallery":null,"ht_game_id":0,"target_video":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chl.ca\/whl-winterhawks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]