2025 WHL Championship Game 2 Player To Watch: Shea Van Olm, Spokane Chiefs

Medicine Hat, Alta.- The Spokane Chiefs have already wiped the slate clean after a Game 1 loss to the Medicine Hat Tigers that was much closer than the 4-1 final score would suggest.

Few Chiefs skaters understand the importance of that mindset better than alternate captain Shea Van Olm.

“On both sides, I think you’re kind of lying to yourself if you weren’t nervous, excited,” Van Olm said on Sunday morning. “Obviously, a big crowd in Medicine Hat was really feeling the support on the ice. You know, even as the visiting team, we can kind of use that as juice for us.”

Van Olm registered an assist on Berkly Catton’s powerplay goal to make it a 2-1 game on Friday night before the Tigers capitalized on a strange bounce and sealed the night with an empty-net goal.

The 21-year-old winger is trying to bookend a unique WHL career with a second Ed Chynoweth Cup.

Van Olm was a part of the 2022 WHL Championship-winning Edmonton Oil Kings, along with his current Chiefs Head Coach Brad Lauer, and went on to compete with the Kamloops Blazers at the 2023 Memorial Cup before joining the Chiefs for a breakout final season and run to the 2025 WHL Championship Series.

“It’s a bit full circle moment for me to have in my last year and I wouldn’t script it any other way,” Van Olm added. “It’s great for young guys. I can kind of tell them some keys and some things to look out for. But I think at the end of the day, it’s just compete and work, and it’s the same game we’ve been playing all year. Experience is a good thing to have, and I cherish it. But you know, it’s about the guys in here, and we’re excited.”

The sniper sits sixth in the playoff scoring race with 11 goals (including two hat tricks and one game-winner) and 17 assists for 28 points in 16 games, forming one of the WHL’s most dangerous lines alongside Captain and Seattle Kraken prospect Berkly Catton and Washington Capitals pick Andrew Cristall.

He was named to the 2024-25 WHL Western Conference Second All-Star Team.

Van Olm, from Calgary, Alta., was also the WHL’s regular season goals leader with 49 lamp-lighters and 92 points.

“He was scoring some big goals for us,” Lauer said after morning skate ahead of Game 2. “We ask a lot for our 20-year-olds, because it is their last year in the league. We want them to have a good year. We want to have fun. We want to make sure we can do everything we can to get them their next opportunity. But they’ve got to put the work in, and I think that’s what you see with Shea.

Just to see his game, you know, go full circle. You get him as a first year, now have him his last year as a 20 year old, and to see the type of year that he’s having, the work he’s put in has been, as a coach that had him once, and then having the second time is very rewarding.”

For Van Olm, the greatest reward would be returning to the win column in Game 2.

Puck drops at Co-op Place at 7:00 p.m. MST on Sunday, May 11.

TSN will carry the game for fans in Canada, while those in the United States and around the world can stream the action on Victory+.