Friday, December 7, 2012

Rivermen Add Two Before Deadline

Press Release

Township of Langley, BC, Wednesday, December 5, 2012: The Langley Rivermen Junior “A” Hockey Club has announced two key signings after the December 1st roster cut down. The team has signed defenseman Tanner Johnson (1995 born) from the Castlegar Rebels of the KIJHL and forward Marco Romano (1994 born) from the North Delta Devils of the PIJHL.

Johnson was having a fantastic rookie season in Castlegar before signing in Langley full time. The young blue-liner had 6 goals and 9 assists in 25 games to go along with 41 penalty minutes. He has played in three games for the Rivermen and has picked up an assist so far.

“He is a young defenseman in this league at 17 years of age and he has shown that he has a ton of upside and already I think he has developed into a pretty good offensive defenseman,” said Rivermen Head Coach/GM Bobby Henderson.

The Castlegar native is still growing at 6’1”, 175 pounds and has impressed the coaching staff every day since his arrival. The Coaches have shown confidence in him already as he has been out on the blue line on the first power play unit in all three of his games thus far.

“Tanner is a responsible player with a ton of offensive flair. He has tremendous stick skills and can really skate and sees the ice really well. Right now we are just trying to groom him into becoming another weapon back on the point.”

Marco Romano is a Burnaby native and was in his first season with North Delta in the PIJHL before joining the Rivermen. In 23 games for the Devils the 18 year old had 9 goals and 9 assists and 14 penalty minutes. He will play his first game with the Rivermen this weekend.

“Marco can be defined with one word and that is speed. We believe he will create a lot of opportunities with his skating ability and that always is an added bonus to your line-up,” said Henderson.

Romano is 5’9”, 165 pounds and had a very good training camp with the Rivermen in September. He has practiced with the club throughout the year and has been on Coach Henderson’s radar for quite some time now.

“From training camp to now, Coach John Craighead (Devils coach) has been keeping me up to date on his progress. He has continued to improve in all areas in his game and we feel he will be a good fit on this roster.”

With the December 1st roster deadline over and done with the team had to let go of three players. Tanner Clarkson, Tyler Vanscourt, and Ben Greiner were all given their release to make room for Nathan Craft, Tanner Johnson, and Marco Romano.

“I think our roster has evolved in the past week a little bit. We got younger and I think we added some more speed to our line-up. We are confident in the players we brought in and we feel we are going in the right direction,” finished Henderson.

The Langley Rivermen organization would like to thank Clarkson, Greiner, and Vanscourt for their contributions and wish them the best of luck in the future.


 (Nathan can be reached at nathanfournier@mainehockeyjournal.com)

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