QMJHL’s golden age for goalies at world junior championship long passed

When Stan Butler was coaching Canada’s world junior team, all he had to do was look to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for a goaltender.

“Goaltending was always a strength of Quebec. In 2002 the only two players we had on our team (from the QMJHL) were the goalies,” said Butler, who coached the ‘02 team to a silver medal with Pascal Leclaire and Olivier Michaud in goal.

“There was a traffic jam of goalies coming out of Quebec in those days. There were a couple camps there where you had all four goalies from Quebec.”

But the days of Quebcec dominance in goal have long passed. This year, Canada is going with Carter Hart from the Western Hockey League and Colton Point from Colgate University in the NCAA for the annual tournament that begins on Boxing Day.

Quebec goalie Samuel Harvey was invited to the selection camp, but was let go in the first round of cuts by head coach Dominique Ducharme.

Ducharme, from Joliette, Que., is aware that his home province isn’t producing goalies as it once did.

“It might be the influence at the time of Patrick Roy and getting the best athletes to be attracted to going in net. Maybe that went away a bit with the new generation of guys,” Ducharme said ahead of the 2018 world junior hockey championship.

Canada had a strong lineup of QMJHL goaltenders at the world juniors in the 80’s and early 90’s, such as Jimmy Waite, Stephane Fiset and Felix Potvin, but nothing in comparison to what Ducharme labelled the “Golden Age” from 1996 to 2004.