You hear it every year during the World Junior Hockey Championship: if only Canada had access to the very best of the best, including current National Hockey League players, this country would grab the title every year and never look back.
This statement would likely be false anyway – imagine Finland with Winnipeg Jets superstar Patrik Laine for the last couple of tournaments – but it fuels imagination when it comes to who would exactly be on that team and who would be playing on what line.
It’s the kind of thing that comes to mind when I see the midget AA Apex Bruins. The best midget aged players from the Estevan and Weyburn areas could absolutely form their own midget AAA team based on who’s playing elsewhere this year. This isn’t to say that these players must play locally, just that if they did the talent is so obviously there it’s impossible to ignore it.
Forward Josh Romanyk is playing with the midget AAA Regina Pat Canadians, while forward Dawson Schaff and goaltender Bryson Garton have hooked on with the Tisdale Trojans, joining forward Liam Rutten. The Moose Jaw Generals have forward Jake Palmer, defenceman Carey Levesque from Carnduff as well as Alameda’s Cody Davis.
The Prince Albert Mintos enjoy the presence of forward Turner McMillen from Carievale and defenceman Alex Von Sprecken. The Swift Current Legionnaires have defenceman Kersey Reich and forward Mason Strutt.
From the Prairie Hockey Academy in Caronport, defencemen Kolby Kaban and Carter McKersie, and forwards Zach Ashworth and Clay McKersie are playing close to the midget AAA level with the Canadian Sport School Hockey League and defenceman Max Wanner is playing with the ‘Elite 15’ team there.
And don’t forget the current crop of midget AA Bruins, including but not excluded to forwards Dalton Schrader, Cale Adams, Dylan Hull, Chase Gedak and Joey Meredith, goaltender Zane Winter and defencemen Tristan Seeman and Adrien Riddell.
So the hockey diaspora with that age group alone is enough that this area could easily host its own midget AAA team in the way that even smallish communities like Tisdale, Beardy’s, the Battlefords and Yorkton can.
These kids and parents aren’t turning their backs on the Estevan hockey system, but it’s proof that the players developed here can have success at the high levels. There’s enough male hockey talent in the 15-17 age group in Estevan and area alone to ice a competitive team in the provincial midget AAA league.
But you need more than talent and the desire to get together and play as an area at this level. You need a major sponsor and a coach who can be pretty steadily equally dedicated to the recruiting aspect and on-ice product. There are some good coaches in this area here and many local businesses can and have stepped up for similar ideas in the past.
While this isn’t quite like the Canada World Junior fantasy team, it’s easy to see that with a little bit of imagination, the same kids that came up through the atom, peewee and bantam teams in the area could combine for a pretty rockin’ kind of team. This isn’t even including some of the Weyburn and area players that would undoubtedly only add to the level of talent a team like that could have.
One of the rights of passage for young athletes is spending time away from home training for the specific purpose of getting better at one’s discipline. It happens in a lot of sports, with water polo being one of those coming to mind.
One of the huge things that stand in the way of something like this happening is the strong pull of teams like Moose Jaw, Regina, Prince Albert and Tisdale that have much bigger reaches than their local areas. Saskatoon ices two competitive midget AAA teams as well, but an even bigger roadblock exists in Notre Dame where the midget AAA teams can draw from across Canada.
Last year’s Telus Cup championship team had regular season leading scorer Luke Mylymok from Boise, Idaho, playoff leading scorer Brad Morrissey from P.E.I., and goaltenders Riley Kohonick from White City (OK, so that’s not so far away) and Aaron Randazzo from Annapolis, Md. You know, Annapolis, right next door to Wilcox, Sask.
The Hounds’ roster last year also had players from New Brunswick, Alberta, Alaska, Florida, Switzerland and California. Their Argos team had players from Nunavut and Montreal.
It’s difficult for the other teams in the Sask Midget AAA Hockey League to compete, recruiting-wise with the kind of pull that Notre Dame has. But a team with southeast Sask players might just give them a run for their money.
