Some Sicamous Eagles players have taken their talents off the ice to help the local fire department.
Defenceman Landen Janz is one of the players who has signed up with the department.
Janz still plans to play hockey and doesn’t intend to switch to firefighting full-time, but said he has a family friend who is a firefighter and one of his best friends works at the Lumby department. He has had an interest and a respect because of that proximity to the industry, he said.
When the offer came to sign up with the Sicamous department, Janz said he was excited because he’d never been able to make an opportunity work with his schedule before.
“They liked my hard work and work ethic, and working in a team helps with a fire department,” said Janz. “They’re very safe and open and reliable, I like all the guys here. It’s fun, it’s not like just going to a job, it’s going there to have fun and enjoy your time.”
Sicamous Fire Chief Brett Ogino said Janz and his teammates Reid Tofteland and Damon Cunningham, who also worked with the department, are the kind of guys any fire chief would look to recruit.
“They’re really good guys to work with, they understand teamwork and they’re fit,” said Ogino. “They also really want to participate and that’s a really big part of it.”
Ogino said the difficulty was “the life of a hockey player,” working around games being scheduled on training nights and the players getting moved around. Tofteland was recently traded to another team and Cunningham moved to the Junior A league.
Janz moved back to Lake Country to finish high school after the Eagles lost round two of the Doug Birks division of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League playoffs. He said he plans to move back to Sicamous in the summer, take further training and get fully registered to continue working the the department.
While Janz hasn’t gone out on a call to fight an active fire yet, he’s participated in live-fire practices, has experience with the equipment and took first aid training.
“It’s a great experience not everyone gets to have and I appreciate firefighters so much for what they do.”
Janz said he has lots of family living around Sicamous, and his family has owned businesses in the area as well as a Swansea Point cabin he visits often, even though he lives full-time in Lake Country off-season. He said he loves the area and playing with the Eagles since November 2022 was great.
Next season will be his third year playing in the KIJHL and he played with the North Okanagan Knights previously.
Janz hopes to move out to play with the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League next, but said if that doesn’t work he’s excited to return to Sicamous and wants to take more of a leadership role on the team.
“I have to thank Brett for giving me the opportunity, I’m happy to be aligned with them. He’s a great chief, a great leader and role model for me to follow,” said Janz.
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