Rosetown's own Vaughn Watterodt is on the move to Vancouver Island. The Saskatoon Blades traded the local forward to the Victoria Royals on Thursday in a one-for-one swap, the Blades acquiring 19-year-old forward Ben Riche.

CHL teams are only allowed three overage (20 year old) players on their roster after October 10. Watterodt was one of ten Blades entering their overage season, and was the first casualty as the team plans ahead for next season.

Blades general manager Colin Priestner shared the following statement in a release on Thursday.

“With our 20 year old situation, we felt it was the right time to make a move to ensure Vaughn had a great landing spot in the league with an emerging team,” said Priestner, who later referred to Watterodt as a "fantastic Blade” who worked hard to improve during his three years in Saskatoon, just this past season battling through an injury that Priestner shared a lot of other players would shut their season down for.

The fan-favourite Watterodt played 173 career games with the Blades, potting 32 goals and adding another 41 assists. His best season was in 2022-23 with 18 goals and 34 total points across a full 68-game season. Watterodt also played 39 playoff games with the Blades the past three seasons, collecting seven goals and eleven assists.

Watterodt certainly brought it on the ice, but was a valuable member off of it as well. The Blades shared earlier this week that for the second year in a row Watterodt won the Blades 'community minded player of the year' award.

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In Victoria, Watterodt will be joining a forward lineupfeaturing another locally born forward in Macklin's Cole Reschny. The Royals made the playoffs this past-season with the 16-year-old Reschny playing a big part, and are hoping that bringing in another west-central product into the fold will be able to take them even further. 

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