Canadian Captain’s success paved by Maxwell
By Jeff Hicks, Kitchener Record
Leaders aren’t solely a product of training. They simply are.
“It comes naturally at some point,” said Ryan Ellis, a former Cambridge minor midget Hawk and the captain of the Canadian world junior hockey team which plays a sold-out exhibition game against Finland at the Aud on Thursday night.
“There are different bumps in the road you are going to see that show your character and what being a captain is all about.”
What bumps lay ahead for Ellis and Canada at the world chamhionships in Buffalo? It’s difficult to say.
The powerful host Americans — who named former Kitchener Rangers gunner Jeremy Morin and Rangers OHL property Jerry D’Amigo to their worlds team on Wednesday — are defending champs.
Ellis, captain of the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires, is Canada’s all-time top scoring defenceman at the worlds with 15 points in 12 games.
The native of Freelton, Ont., won gold in 2009. He settled for silver a year ago.
At 19, he’s Canada’s puck-blasting blueline ace, just like he was for Cambridge when the Hawks won the Alliance title in 2007.
His coach back then? Cambridge’s Brad Maxwell, father of current Rangers goalie and then-Hawks teammate Brandon Maxwell.
Ellis calls the elder Maxwell his favourite coach during his minor hockey days, which included a bantam provincial title in Mississauga.
“He was the best person to prepare me for the major junior level and levels beyond,” the Nashville NHL first-rounder said of Maxwell, a current assistant coach with the Guelph Storm.
