Garand plans to use national U-18 duty to jumpstart WHL season
Victoria product is Blazers’ No. 1 netminder
All goalies have origin stories of how they first came to inhabit the crease. It usually entails putting your hand up when the regular goaltender failed to show up for a game in Peewee or something like that. But not Dylan Garand of Victoria. This is what he was meant to do from the beginning.
“I liked it immediately and went into the nets right from initiation hockey in Juan de Fuca,” said Garand.
His only foray out was a brief flirtation with defence in Novice, but otherwise, it’s been all crease all the time.
It is leading to big things as Garand is among the nine Western Hockey League players named to the 22-player Canadian U-18 team for the 2019 Hlinka Gretzky Cup from Aug. 5 to 10 in Breclav and Piestany, Czech Republic.
A total of 44 players were invited to a five-day tryout camp in Calgary.
The goaltenders selected are Garand and Tristan Lennox of Cambridge, Ont., who plays for Saginaw of the Ontario Hockey League.
This is Garand’s third national team experience wearing the Maple Leaf after playing in the U-17 World Hockey Challenge last fall and the IIHF world U-18 championship in the spring.
“I’ve had international experience already,” he noted.
Garand also had a notable rookie season in the WHL for the Kamloops Blazers. When 20-year-old veteran Dylan Ferguson of Lantzville went down with injury, the 16-year-old Garand backstopped the Blazers to a breathless seven-game winning streak to end the regular season, and one-game play-in victory over the Kelowna Rockets, to earn a playoff berth.
The Island crease tandem of Garand and Las Vegas Golden Knights-prospect Ferguson then shared the work in a six-game loss to the Victoria Royals in the first round of the playoffs.
“It was a lot of fun playing with [Ferguson]. He was such a great mentor and I learned a lot from him,” said Garand, who turned 17 in June.
The two Blazers creasemen facing their home-Island WHL team provided a storyline in the series.
“It was weird at first because as a kid I grew up watching games in the stands of the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre and wanting to be a Royal,” said Garand.
Instead, the third-round bantam draft pick of the Blazers could be the Royals’ worst nightmare for at least three more years in the B.C. Division. With Ferguson graduated, the Kamloops crease load will now fall on Garand. Which is fine by him.
“I’m super excited about the increased work. I would like to play every night if I could. You don’t play this game to sit on the bench,” said Garand, whose older brother Jordan is a UVic engineering student.
One thing Royals fans noted about the Blazers rookie goalie in the series was that he plays well beyond his years and nothing seems to rattle Garand. That’s exactly what Canada U-18 selectors noticed, as well.
“I’m calm, cool and collected,” said Garand, when asked about what he considers his greatest attribute in the crease.
“I’m never antsy or hyped up.”
Garand and his Canada mates have a pre-tournament game against Slovakia on Saturday in Piestany before opening the Hlinka Gretzky Cup on Monday in Breclav against Finland at 6:30 a.m. PT. All of Canada’s tournament games will be broadcast on TSN.
Canada won the tournament last year in Edmonton and Red Deer, Alta., besting Sweden 6-2 in the gold-medal game. Canada has won the gold 22 times in the 28 years this summer U-18 tournament has been contested and also has two silver medals and one bronze.