Marquee names missing this time
JUNIOR HOCKEY When the 32 or so players invited to next week’s selection camp in Vancouver for Canada’s world junior hockey team are announced today, casual fans might well be asking: Anybody know these guys?
Or, perhaps: Who’s going to be this year’s Dion Phaneuf on the blueline? Can anybody score like Patrice Bergeron or Jeff Carter?
There will be no players released from NHL teams and the only returnee from the squad that won Canada’s first gold medal in eight years last January at Grand Forks, N. D., will be Medicine Hat defenceman Cam Barker. And he didn’t even dress
for the semifinal
o r f i n a l a f ter
being sent home
to Wi n n i p e g
a f t e r t h r e e
round-robin
ga m e s w i t h
mononucleosis.
The absence
o f m a rq u e e,
superstar talent
ensures there will be some second- guessing when the names of the invitees are released at simultaneous news conferences in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
Fans in junior hockey cities, the media, scouts and junior team executives will undoubtedly be quick to debate the choices. Blair Mackasey, Canada’s player personnel director, concedes it was tough to get down to the number given that the depth of talent is so consistent and the fact he and head coach Brent Sutter want players who bring particular elements to the mix.
One certainty is that Canada will be younger than last year when the squad was dominated by 19- year-olds. Most of the topend players this year in the three major junior hockey leagues in Canada are in their 18-year-old season (born in 1987).
Mackasey also says that Hockey Canada will lean heavily on players that have come up through the system, guys who have played internationally in under-17 and under-18 tournaments, and in particular at last April’s under- 18 worlds.
“ Without guys who have played world junior, we want kids who have that international experience, who know what to expect,” Mackasey said last month while through Vancouver on a scouting trip.
“ And we want guys who have fit into a team environment like this before where maybe you don’t get the kind of ice time you’re used to on your own team.”
Like Mackasey, head coach Brent Sutter said he got a good read on players at last summer’s 40- player evaluation camp in Whistler.
The two often talk about the fact they think very much alike and that means a roster filled with hard- nosed players who compete hard on the puck and who do so with speed.
“ If players struggle at the international level, it’s because they can’t play at the pace of the other team’s better players,” Mackasey told the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix
last week.
Injuries
have r u l e d
out dynamic
Vancouver
Giants’ centre
Gilbert Brule,
currently
with the NHL
Columbus
Blue Jackets,
and almost
certainly Giant defenceman Brendan Mikkelson. He was on last spring’s under-18 team but has only just resumed skating after missing a month with a knee injury.
That leaves Vancouver captain Mark Fistric, a strong-skating, 19year-old blueline bruiser, as the lone hope for Giant content.
“ Mark had an average camp last summer,” said Giants’ GM Scott Bonner. “But the thing to remember is that he had almost the whole year off because of [a jaw] injury. When Brent was through here last month, we gave our pitch, told him how important Mark was to our team and how good he’s been this year.
“He deserves to be invited.”
Even if Fistric isn’t invited, there will be some local and B. C. flavour at the selection camp. Moose Jaw winger Kendal McArdle, a Burnaby product, is expected to be invited as are WHL goaltenders Justin Pogge, a Penticton nat ive, and Carey Price, a Williams Lake native.
As well, Val-d’Or defenceman Luc Bourdon and Shawinigan goaltender Julien Ellis- Plante, both Vancouver Canuck draft picks, are good bets to be invited.
gkingston@png.canwest.com