Huge Hitmen prospect ready to hit ice
16-year-old van de Leest is 6-foot-6 and close to 220 pounds with room to grow
A little confidence has gone a long way for Jackson van de Leest.
Although he only turned 16 on June 15, the hulking defenceman has aspirations of making an immediate impact with the Calgary Hitmen in his rookie Western Hockey League season.
“I’m feeling really good,” van de Leest said Thursday afternoon at the Saddledome while taking a break from an intense fitnesstesting session to kick off training camp for the Hitmen. “I did a lot of stuff in the off-season to prepare for this moment, and I’m really looking forward to the upcoming season.”
In addition to playing midget prep at the Okanagan Hockey Academy last season, van de Leest suited up for seven regular-season games for the Hitmen and three more in the post-season.
“Just getting in the games last year, I thought was really good to get my foot in the door,” said van de Leest, whom the Hitmen drafted in the first round, 16th overall, in the 2016 WHL Bantam Draft.
“I’m going to try to attack it right away and really try to make my presence on the team and in the league known.”
Standing 6-foot-6 and weighing in at close to 220 pounds, van de Leest definitely has the size to hold his own in the WHL.
“He’s still got room to put weight on, so he’s going to be a monster,” said Dallas Thompson, who took over as director of player personnel for the Hitmen this year after serving as director of B.C. scouting the past couple seasons. “He played for the Yale Academy his bantam draft year, and I saw that team play 30 times over the year.
“He was a guy that just kept getting better and better as the year went along. We were surprised he was sitting there where we picked him at 16.”
Although he’s technically heading into his rookie WHL campaign, van de Leest was elevated to start training camp with the veteran players.
“They’re a great group, so I’m really hoping to improve my game coming into the season,” said the Kelowna native, who had three goals and 16 assists in 29 games with OHA White last season. “I definitely tried to up my offensive game a little more and practise some things I maybe wasn’t doing before. I think it’ll be really good to see how well I’ve trained and developed those aspects coming into the season here.”
Thompson fully expects van de Leest to crack the Calgary club’s lineup for their opening weekend of action on Sept. 22-23 when they play the Kootenay Ice in a homeand-home series.
Thompson said he would be very surprised “if he’s not here” to start the season. “He’s a very level-headed kid, and he knows that he’s got to put the work in. Nothing’s given, and he has to take the bull by the horns here.”
Luke Prokop, the Calgary squad’s top pick in the 2017 WHL Bantam Draft, is hoping to follow van de Leest’s lead and turn some heads at Hitmen rookie camp before returning to his hometown of Edmonton to play at the midget prep level for the northern Alberta XTreme this season.
“I’ll hopefully try and do what he did last year,” said the 15-yearold defenceman, who was selected seventh overall by the Hitmen in May. “I just want to leave a good impression on the coaching staff and my eventual teammates, that they can see that I can play at this level. Then when I try and take that next step next year, they’ll be even more comfortable with me playing alongside them.”
Andrew Viggars was the top performer among veterans in a pair of fitness-testing categories on Thursday.
Training camp for both rookies and veterans will continue at Don Hartman North East Sportsplex on Friday and Saturday leading up to a Young Guns Game for the top 15-, 16- and 17-year-old players on Sunday at 1 p.m. followed by a three-on-three game for the veterans at 5 p.m.
The annual Calgary Hitmen intra-squad game will take place at the Kyle Stuart Memorial Arena at Edge School on Monday at 6 p.m. Tickets are $5 and will be available at the door, with proceeds going to support Edge School.