Shore set to seize his Denver dream with Canucks audition
What will the Vancouver Canucks see during the Drew Shore audition? Billy Copeland knows.
The North Shore Winter Club coach had a formidable band of bantams in the 2004-05 season. On a dominant club that stormed to a provincial championship and a Western Canadian title, he guided Evander Kane, Martin Jones, Stefan Elliott and Shore — who would all play National Hockey League roles — but there was something special in Shore.
Maybe it was because Shore was so strong-willed that he left Denver at age 13 to pursue a higher level of hockey in another country. Or maybe it was the fact that he processed the game at such a high level because he was simply well ahead of his development curve.
“He’s 26 going on 46 because the biggest thing back then in bantam was his level of maturity,” Copeland recalled Monday. “He’s a student of the game and so well-spoken.
“That season (2004-05) we were on a plane to Saskatchewan for the Western Canadian championship. He comes back to my seat and asked the lady beside me — in a very respectful way — if she could move because he wanted to talk about our defensive-zone coverage.
“We gave up only two goals the entire provincials, due in a large part by having Jones in net, but he was still questioning why we were doing it. He wound up playing for Team USA at the under-17 worlds and they used the same defensivezone coverage as us in bantam.”
Not that Willie Desjardins is about to give up his whiteboard to Shore on the bench, but the Ca- nucks coach is getting somebody who thinks the game well and that is only going to help the 6-3, 205-pound Shore make an impact.
He’s on a one-way, pro-rated contract for US$600,000 for the remainder of the regular season to show what he can do as a two-way presence and he’s buoyed by the transition of former Flames teammates Sven Baertschi and Markus Granlund to the Canucks.
Shore had 48 points (24-24) in 50 games with Kloten HC of the Swiss A League this season, but has just 24 points (9-15) in 80 career NHL games with Florida and Calgary.
However, Copeland knows the 2009 second-round pick of the Panthers is re-energized by having another NHL shot.
“I know it means everything to him,” added Copeland. “He texted me from the plane after he signed. We were discussing in the summer where to go and he gave some serious thought to the KHL. For him to do this is something he really wants.”
The connection between Copeland and the Shore family remains as strong as ever.
“He was really impactful and in my two years here, he made me feel comfortable and grow as a player,” Shore said of Copeland.
“But having (parents) ‘willing’ to let me go (to Vancouver) is probably not the word. There were a lot of hours of debate and I lived my first year with a family who were also from Colorado and that also helped my parents feel comfortable.”