Game On Magazine - April 2017 GameOn-Apr2017-P001-144-ONLINE | Page 101

As good as he already is,
he’s still developing. One of the
reasons we recruited him out of the
Blues three years ago was that we
believed he was a player who was
just going to keep getting better.
He had a solid season in 2013-14,
but had an even
better playoff
run
W
innipeg Blues head coach
Billy Keane went out to the
University of Manitoba one
night this winter to watch his old goalie, Byron
Spriggs, play for the Bisons.
When he left, Keane was impressed.
“Wow, is he good,” Keane said. “I think he’s
good enough now to play pro.”
Keane, as much as anyone, knows how good
Byron Spriggs can be. It was back in 2014 when
Keane was the assistant coach to Don MacGil-
livray (now with the Brandon Wheat Kings) on a
Blues team that won the Manitoba Junior Hock-
ey League championship. Spriggs,
who was never supposed to
be a Junior A goalie, was
named top goalie in the
playoffs as he led the
Blues to their seventh
MJHL championship in
the Centennial Cup/Royal
Bank Cup Era.
These days, Spriggs is an out-
standing goaltender with the Universi-
ty of Manitoba Bisons, a player who improves
every game, every week, every season and
al