THUNDER BAY – The country’s best midget-aged hockey players are coming to Thunder Bay in two years time.
Hockey Northwestern Ontario on Thursday made it official, announcing they’ve secured hosting rights for the 2019 Telus Cup, the national midget championship, the first time the tournament will be staged in Thunder Bay since future NHLer Greg Johnson led the Thunder Bay Bearcats to a bronze-medal finish in 1988.
In addition the city will host the four-team 2018 western regional, the winner advancing to next year’s Telus Cup.
Darrin Nicholas, coach of the host Major Midget Kings, said hosting the six-team national tournament comes with one nice perk – an automatic berth.
“I’ve often said it’s probably more difficult to come out of the western region than it is to win the national championship tournament,” Nicholas said. “To have an opportunity to bypass that and get right in the national championship is a real big deal for us.
“Obviously any team I’m involved in, we don’t want to use the free pass, we want to earn our way into the spot.”
Nicholas said the tournament, which should feature numerous future NHL players, is a great chance to showcase the high caliber of midget hockey that’s still being played in Canada, despite the lure of the major junior and junior A hockey ranks, especially in Ontario.
Building the team that will compete in 2019 has already begun.
Nicholas, who took over the squad after Rob DeGagne left to coach the Superior International Junior Hockey League’s Thunder Bay North Stars, said the plan is to look within first.
“I think we’ll look for synergies within the system. No. 1, you want to bring in good quality kids that love to play the game of hockey and want to commit themselves to get better. We don’t want this to be the focal point of a young man’s hockey career,” Nicholas said. “It will be a good stepping stone to get him to the next level.”
Nicholas said aligning the major and minor midget programs with the North American Prospects League means he’ll have a good chance to scout the minor midget team a number of times this season, with an eye to filling out a roster for the tournament.
“We’ll just sort of integrate them in,” he said, noting there was a lot of turnover from last year’s team, meaning they’ll be bringing in a lot of players with two years of eligibility this fall.
“By the time next year rolls around they’ll also have 70 games in with us, so that will put us further ahead. And we’ll supplement that with some new kids we bring in, so I’m not teaching 20 kids the system, I’m teaching six or seven.”
Thunder Bay teams have twice won the Telus Cup, formerly the Air Canada Cup, in 1995 and 1997. It’s a tournament that in the past has featured the likes of Sidney Crosby, Glenn Anderson, Wendel Clark, Patrick Roy and Steve Yzerman.
Kings president Gary Linquist said the event will have up to a $5-million economic impact on the city, and he’s hopeful hockey fans – and scouts – will come out in droves.
“I’m hoping for between 2,000 and 3,000 for the night games, when our team plays,” he said.
Ticket information will be made available at a later date.
