University stars tough test for Canadian juniors
The 2013 Oscar-winning best documentary film, 20 Feet From Stardom, chronicled the lives of background singers for famous groups and lead singers.
The hockey equivalent is U Sports, which may just be the most underrated, if not downright underappreciated, brand of the sport in North America. The U Sports all-star team players are former major-junior Canadian Hockey League performers. It’s a fine line in sports when you are perhaps half a step from stardom. If not for missing that half step, they might have been the millionaire NHLers-to-be they will face in the three-game exhibition series against the Canadian junior team selection camp invitees. The games are tonight and Thursday at 6 p.m. and Friday at 2 p.m., all at The Q Centre
Canadian junior national team head coach Tim Hunter compared the U Sports all-star team to a “good American Hockey League team.”
The Canadian university stars will give the Canadian juniors a good skate this week. Which is the whole point of the exercise — to push the starry juniors against players Hunter described as “older, smarter, heavier U Sports players.”
“It’s a good measuring stick. It’s a good way for us to evaluate our players [ahead of the 2019 IIHF world junior championship in Vancouver and Victoria starting on Boxing Day],” said Hunter.
It sure is. Case in point is that the U Sports team swept the Canadian juniors in their two-game selection camp exhibition set last year in St. Catharines, Ont., ahead of the 2018 IIHF world juniors in Buffalo, New York. The series was expanded this year to three games.
The U Sports players are accessing their entitlement to a year of paid post-season education for every season played in the CHL. This isn’t just an important series for the Canadian junior team hopefuls, as Hunter and his staff look to cut 34 players down to 22 for the world juniors. Nine U Sports players signed AHL contracts following the U SportsCanadian junior series the past three years.
“A lot of these guys could be playing in the ECHL,” said U Sports all-star team head coach Mark Howell of the University of Calgary Dinos.
“These are three great days for these players with a lot of NHL scouts watching the games.”
But they are up against the younger Canadian junior team hopefuls who are expected to be the NHL stars of the future.
“We know we have to play fast with a lot of pace and intensity,” said Howell, in his 10th season with the Dinos, and third year on the U Sports bench.
Third-year UBC Thunderbirds defenceman Jerret Smith from Surrey will play for the U Sports team and knows the likes of Canadian junior forwards and first-round NHL draft picks Cody Glass, Liam Foudy and Owen Tippett will be bearing down on him.
“We are aware of their team speed,” said Smith, a mobile, two-way blue-liner, who played four seasons in the WHL for the Seattle Thunderbirds.
But the 23-year-old finance major said U Sports athletes face pressure every weekend.
“It’s intense hockey because, compared to all the games they play in the WHL, we only play games on weekends. So every [Canada West] game is a battle because all the points really matter,” said Smith. Then there is the balancing of books and pucks. “It was a big adjustment at first [coming out of the WHL],” he said.
Tickets for the Canada-U Sports games are $15 and available at HockeyCanada/Tickets.ca, Select Your Tickets, the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre box office or by phoning 250-220-7777. If any tickets remain, they will be sold at The Q Centre box office prior to game time.