CALGARY, Alta. – Twenty-nine players from across Canada will convene at the Markin MacPhail Centre at WinSport's Canada Olympic Park in Calgary from Sept. 26-30 to test their mettle in hopes of cracking Canada’s National Sledge Team roster for the 2016-17 season.
The selection camp - which includes on- and off-ice testing, practices and intrasquad Red-White games - will be the final opportunity for the nation’s top players to make an impression on national team head coach, Ken Babey, and Hockey Canada’s hockey operations personnel before this year’s roster is officially named on Oct. 1.
“Twenty-eight of the 29 players were with us in August and had a very productive development camp, but this is a whole new ballgame,” said Babey, who is joined at the selection camp by guest coaches Russ Herrington, Danny Lynch, Jim Babcock, and Maxime Gagnon. “There are no guaranteed spots on Team Canada, and we have a very intense week ahead where we’ll be looking to each of these players to rise to the occasion and demonstrate why they should be wearing the Maple Leaf this season.”
Four players born in 2000 – James Dunn (Wallacetown, Ont.), Adam Kingsmill (Smithers, B.C.), Zach Savage (Westlock, Alta.), and Branden Sison (Edmonton) - are part of a young crop of players who are in the mix next week, having been identified through Hockey Canada’s inaugural NextGen Prospects’ Camp in March 2016.
The young guns face stiff competition for positions on Canada’s National Sledge Team from returning veterans who have played key roles in past successes on the international stage, including 2006 Paralympic gold medallists Brad Bowden, Billy Bridges and Greg Westlake.
Canada’s National Sledge Team will take part in the 2016 World Sledge Hockey Challenge in Charlottetown, P.E.I., Dec. 4-10; the 4 Nations Cup in Italy in February 2017; and the 2017 IPC Sledge Hockey World Championship in PyeongChang, Korea, next spring.
For more information on Hockey Canada and Canada’s sledge hockey programs, please visit HockeyCanada.ca, or follow along via social media on Facebook, and Twitter.