Brandon Manning knows the empty feeling of not playing hockey this time of year.
A year ago he was in that situation when the Chiliwack Bruins missed the playoffs.
That's only happened once in the four seasons the Bruins have been part of the WHL and under Manning's leadership, they clinched their spot weeks before the season ended. They'll take on the first-place Tri-City Americans in a best-of-seven series that starts Friday in Kennewick, Wash.
In only his sophomore WHL season, Manning was named captain of the Bruins and accepted the role given to him by head coach Marc Habscheid to lead a Chilliwack team that includes three 16-year-olds and six 17-year-olds.
"Coming into the year we just wanted to make the playoffs but now I don't think we'll be satisfied with that -- we want to win a round here and go somewhere," said Manning, who grew up in Prince George. "If we can get all 20 guys in the dressing room believing we can take this as far as we can go, we can run with this.
"It's been a bit of a learning experience, I'm just learning as I'm going, but we have great leadership in the dressing room -- the 20-year-olds (defencemen Jesse Craige and Matt Delahey, and forward Colton Grant) help out a lot. When you have a supporting cast like that it makes my job pretty easy."
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