by Glen Gibbs Peak Sports Powell River Kings’ head coach and general manager Kent Lewis and five of his players returned from Canmore, Alberta where they attended the Canada West evaluation camp for the World Junior A Hockey Challenge to be held in Langley in November.
Lewis, who made the trip with players Teagan Waugh, Evan Richardson, Matt Scarth, Jordan Paddock and Sean Maguire, was impressed. “There’s a right way to do things and Hockey Canada does things the right way. To see the Hockey Canada facility that was just featured on TSN, you want to talk about getting your socks blown off. It was like being in hockey heaven.”
Waugh agreed. “It was very intense and I was very impressed with how professional it all was. I felt I played my role which is a gritty, high energy kind of game and I felt pretty good out there.”
The 60-player camp ran from September 11 to 15 and Lewis reported his players did the Kings proud.
“I thought they represented themselves well,” he said, “and I thought they represented our club well. The expectations of the players there, on and off the ice, is no different than what we have here, so I think that’s where our guys didn’t feel a culture shock.”
The players expressed comfort in having their head coach in Canmore for the camp.
“He asks the same of me for that team as he does here,” said Kings’ rookie Scarth. “It seemed like a typical Kings’ practice: nice and hard and fast.”
Now that the evaluation is over, defenceman Paddock said there’s nothing left to do but wait for the call. “They told us we’d hear from the beginning to mid October,” he said. “The guys find out then if they are going to the mini camp in Langley.”
Asked about his chances of making the cut from the 18 defencemen at the camp, Paddock said, “on a team like this you’re going to need a whole bunch of different guys. You need guys to go into the corners, grit, guys to move the puck on the power play and get the puck out on the penalty kill, and you need smart guys.”
Wearing the Maple Leaf brings out the best in hockey players and coaches alike and Lewis relishes the opportunity. He acknowledged feeling the pressure that comes from the task at hand but welcomes the challenge.
“I think at the end of the day the responsibility is on the head coach,” he said. “The process though is a group effort and it’s just like we run the bench here, where we’re going to be delegating responsibilities to all our coaches. At the end of the day I like to think if we’re not successful it will fall on me and if we are successful it will fall on everybody.”
Kings, in the meantime, open their regular season at 7:30 pm on Friday, September 23 and Saturday, September 24 when they host Nanaimo Clippers at Hap Parker Arena. The later than usual start to the season has the Kings chomping at the bit and the arrival of the Clippers from Vancouver Island to Powell River makes the opener a great double header for fans.
“It’s been a long wait,” said Lewis, “and it’s nice to get going. Powell River people identify with the island more because that’s how we grew up playing against those teams. We have great rivalries with our island opponents and we’re excited to get things started with Nanaimo this weekend.”
