CLEVE DHEENSAW
sa国际传媒
It’s a long and rather distinguished line.
Matthew Wood of Nanaimo will become the latest Island player to represent sa国际传媒 in the world junior hockey championship as the former Victoria Grizzlies forward was among the 22 players and 12 forwards named to the Canadian team for the 2024 tournament beginning Boxing Day in Gothenburg, Sweden, following the 30-player selection camp that concluded Wednesday in Oakville, Ont.
The six-foot-four power winger was one of only two NCAA players named to the Canadian team, along with forward Macklin Celebrini from Boston University, ranked No. 1 for the 2024 NHL draft. Wood, selected by the Nashville Predators in the first round of last summer’s NHL draft, has seven goals and five assists for 12 points in 17 games this season for the University of sa国际传媒icut Huskies.
Eight Western Hockey League players were named.
“This was a tremendously competitive camp that showed once again the depth of talent that exists across the country,” said Peter Anholt, the U-20 lead for the Hockey sa国际传媒 Program of Excellence management group.
“With so many talented players, difficult decisions had to be made, but the management, coaching and scouting staffs believe the team we have assembled will give us the best chance to compete for a gold medal in Sweden,” added Anholt, in a statement.
Wood follows goaltender Dylan Garand of Langford, who backstopped sa国际传媒 to the 2022 gold medal. Garand, also a silver medallist in 2021 along side former Grizzlies captain Alex Newhook, became the fourth double medallist from the Island in the world junior tournament and the first since Kent Manderville of Victoria won back-to-back world junior golds in 1990 and 1991. Former Victoria Cougars WHL forwards Mark Morrison and Port Alberni’s late Paul Cyr were the first Islanders to pull the medal double with gold in 1982 and bronze in 1983. Also a part of those teams was current Victoria Royals WHL head coach James Patrick.
The first Islanders to play at the world junior championships were future NHL players Mel Bridgman of Victoria and the late Rick Lapointe of Esquimalt, both at the time with the Victoria Cougars of the WHL, and won silver with sa国际传媒 in 1975.
Canadian interest in the event grew because of a freak occurrence in the 1982 tournament in a ratty little rink in Rochester, Minnesota. When the tape machine jammed, the gold-medallist Canadian players filled the silence with an impromptu rendition of O sa国际传媒 that captured the imagination of Canadians. The Victoria Cougars’ undersized but wily Morrison and Alberni’s Cyr were part of that championship team. Morrison, as Canadian captain, and Cyr were also part of the 1983 bronze-medallist Canadian squad at Leningrad, as was Patrick both times.
Jamie Benn of Central Saanich was a major factor in sa国际传媒 winning world junior gold in 2009 at Ottawa and the Dallas Stars captain continued his international career with gold at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
Victoria Royals’ mobile defenceman Joes Hicketts helped lead sa国际传媒 to the gold medal in the 2015 world juniors in Toronto. Another offensive blue-liner, current Predators defenceman Tyson Barrie out of the Juan de Fuca Minor Hockey Association, won silver in 2011 at Buffalo with Port Hardy-raised, Campbell River native Brett Connolly.
Former NHLer Matt Pettinger of Victoria led sa国际传媒 to the bronze medal at the 2000 world juniors in Sweden. Scrappy former Victoria Cougars WHL forwards Curt Fraser and the late Gary Lupul both won silver medals in the 1978 and 1979 world juniors, respectively.
Non-medallist Islanders who represented sa国际传媒 were also a notable group. Stanley Cup-champion captain Rod Brind’Amour of Campbell River and former NHL forward Russ Courtnall of Victoria respectively played in the world juniors in 1984 in Sweden and 1989 in Anchorage, Alaska.
Meanwhile, current Royals forwards Robin Sapousek (a silver medallist in the 2023 tournament) and Casper Haugen Evensen, from Czechia and Norway (Tier II), respectively, are both 2024-bound, and are the seventh and eighth Royals to play in the world juniors following Keanu Derungs for Switzerland, Hicketts twice for sa国际传媒 and Phillip Schultz twice for Denmark and Igor Martynov for Belarus in 2018.
