Roy & Campbell Invited To World Junior Camp

Category: Article2 December 2002

Canadian Press

TORONTO — If it was good enough for Wayne Gretzky, it’s good enough for Blair Mackasey.

In choosing the 34 players invited to the Canadian junior hockey team selection camp later this month in Halifax, the director of scouting for the Canadian Hockey Association took a page out of Gretzky’s Olympic book.

“We tried to follow a little bit of the Olympic format that Wayne had with the Olympic team in ‘Let’s bring in the most skill possible and then we’re going to figure out where they can play,” Mackasey said yesterday in Toronto.

The selection camp opens Dec. 11 in Halifax, where the 2003 world junior hockey championship will be staged. The 22 players who will represent Canada at the under-20 tournament will be named Dec. 16.

The 12 defencemen on the selection camp roster are all multi-purpose blue-liners with strong skating and puckhandling abilities, who can play both an offensive or stay-at-home game. There are a few candidates who could quarterback the Canadian team’s power play.

The 18 forwards have various attributes, but the common denominators are that they are all complete players. They are among the highest offensive producers on their respective club teams and in their leagues yet they all look after the defensive zone and can play a two-way game.

The four goaltenders are a surprise because Olivier Michaud was not among them.

Even though the 19-year-old played only two games for the Canadian team that won a silver medal in the Czech Republic in January, it is rare that a veteran is not invited back to selection camp the following year.

The four other veterans from the silver medal squad — Carlo Colaiacovo, Nathan Paetsch, Scottie Upshall and Jay McClement — have been invited back.

“I think this business of experience is overrated,” said Mackasey. “I would rather take a little more talent and a little less experience and take my chances.

“We felt we needed better goaltending than what we’ve had in the past few years. We need people who can be your No. 1 goaltender and also people that can steal a game for you and win a game on their own.”

The goaltending jobs are therefore wide open to Marc-Andre Fleury, Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers and Cam Ward, who are all 18, and 19-year-old college netminder David LeNeveu.

Fleury, who turned 18 last week, would be a popular selection in Nova Scotia because he is a star goaltender for the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles.

Minnesota Wild forward Pierre-Marc Bouchard is the lone NHL representative on the team so far.

Ottawa Senators general manager John Muckler told reporters yesterday he hadn’t made a decision yet on whether Jason Spezza would play in his fourth world junior championship.

The Senators sent Spezza to Binghamton in the American Hockey League yesterday. That may increase the 19-year-old centre’s chances of representing Canada again.

“It doesn’t hurt,” said Mackasey. “That’s something we’re working on.”

The other question mark is Washington Capitals defenceman Steve Eminger, who would have made the Canadian team last year if there hadn’t already been five returning blue-liners.

“I think, Steve, depending on the injury situation in Washington could be available,” said Mackasey.

Columbus Blue Jackets forward Rick Nash, who at age 17 made last year’s Canadian team, and Florida Panthers defenceman Jay Bouwmeester and forward Stephen Weiss aren’t likely to be made available.

The world junior tournament is often played on the larger international ice surface in Europe, but in Halifax, it will be on the smaller North American ice sheet at the Halifax Metro Centre.

“It certainly brought some players into consideration because of the smaller ice surface, but the bottom line was we wanted the best and most skilled players available,” said Mackasey.

Some of the players invited such as Kitchener Rangers centre Derek Roy have previous international experience with Canada’s under-18 team and with their regional under-17 team. Others such as Roy’s teammate Gregory Campbell have no international experience.

Roy believes surviving the Canadian team cuts will be a tough task.

“It’s going to be quite difficult especially if they send guys down from the NHL,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll fight through that, be one of the best players out there and make them have to keep me.”

The lone 17-year-old on the roster is Portland Winter Hawks defenceman Braydon Coburn.

Mackasey consulted with Canadian head coach Marc Habscheid and assistants Mike Kelly and Mario Durocher on the players he scouted, but it was Mackasey who had the final say on the selection camp roster.

“He’s the only one that’s seen our whole talent pool and he’s the one that can make the best judgment out of us all,” Habscheid said from Calgary in a conference call.

But it will be Habscheid, coach of the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets, who will make the final call at selection camp on who he wants on his hockey team.

Mackasey was a member of the scouting staff of the Phoenix Coyotes, managed by Gretzky, before taking over for Barry Trapp as director of scouting for the Canadian Hockey Association in June.

While a player’s performance at selection camp plays an important part in determining whether he makes the team, what the player has done before that camp will be equally important, said Mackasey.

“Selection camp, you have to be careful,” he said. “One of the things that Wayne told me, and this is more for the coaches, was ‘Don’t base your selections on what people do in two days of camp. Look at what they’ve done over the past two years or year and a half and what their long-term record has been because people can do things in two days that can fool you.’

“I think those are excellent words of advice.”

Roy & Campbell Invited To World Junior Camp

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