The Clippers season ended with a five game playoff loss to the Victoria Grizzlies. The team will bring back a large portion of their roster next year in the hopes of being a top team in Coastal Division. (Gary Dorland)

By Dan Marshall

Playoff Exit

VIDEO: Clippers hope to bring lessons from playoff loss into next season

Apr 16, 2024 | 4:14 PM

NANAIMO — The Clippers season came to an end over the weekend, with a Game 5 loss to the Victoria Grizzlies on Friday, April 12.

It was a season which ended much too early for the players and coaches but there’s belief the sting of losing out in the opening round of the BCHL playoffs could pave the way for future success.

The last month of the regular season served as foreshadowing with the Clippers going 3-7-1 and a growing number of injuries.

“We just didn’t have it,” head coach and general manager Colin Birkas said. “We were so banged up. That month of March really took such a piece out of our guys. Nobody really got back to full health. The guys that played through discomfort and pain and did what they could, I commend them.

Birkas said upwards of 10 different players were battling injuries which could have meant them missing time if it were early in the regular season.

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In 2022, the Clippers went to a league with with a veteran team, and they won the Coastal Division regular season title in 2023 with an experience core as well.

Birkas acknowledged this team was younger and had fewer BCHL games played.

“In my time in Nanaimo we always have a good crop of veteran guys who care about the logo. It’s something that has to grow organically. You have to go through something like this is a group. When we play next year those guys will have that bitterness and that resentment to another program, they’ll play tighter and it’ll be tougher for someone to beat us.”

The Clippers have now said goodbye to some culture carrying veterans in captain Brett Merner and scoring leader Mike Murtagh.

“I can’t say enough about those guys, their loyalty, they’re work ethic. They shouldn’t have been playing but good luck keeping those kids out of the lineup. Those guys were invested and it’s something you can’t manufacture.”

Graduating players Gabriel Westling, Noah Alvarez, Emmett McHardy, Luke Buss and Isa Parekh were only in Nanaimo for year but Birkas said they had a significant impact.

“They had a good life experience, I talk to the players daily. They’re upset that we lost but not one of them has any regret that this is the program they chose to come to. Those are guys that gambled on me, the city and the program. They were awesome kids, they all played a part for us.”

Nanaimo will return several players in the 2004 and 2005 birth years next season, players which will form a veteran core.

Birkas believes strongly in those players who learned many hockey and life lessons in the 2023-24 season.

“We have a large nucleus who can come back and that’s positive. There’s stability here and it’s time to take a step forward. I owe it to the fans and the stakeholders of Nanaimo to put a product on the ice they can cheer on until right until May, we don’t take that lightly, not the players nor myself.”

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