You’ve got to hand it to Hockey Canada for being vigilant as it pertains to the National Junior Hockey program.
There have been many years when the suggestion was made that the National Junior Team process was pre-ordained, that is, players invited to the Summer Camp were the same players who got the invitation to the Selection Camp.
It’s obvious this year, based on the OHL candidates for the Canadian Junior team, that a shuffle of candidates took place.
In the summer, 12 OHL players were invited to the Evaluation Camp.
A scant 4 months later, 11 OHL’ers were invited to the Selection Camp, but only 4 of those 11 invited to the Selection Camp were at the Summer Evaluation Camp.
Now in fairness, a couple of bodies were shuffled due to questions about availability.
Taylor Hall, Kyle Clifford, Tyler Sequin and Jeffery Skinner, for the moment and maybe forever, are in the NHL, and while eligible to play, might not be made available to Canada by their NHL team.
However, from the outside looking in, it appears to me that 7 OHL’ers, including Owen Sound’s Joey Hishon and Garrett Wilson played their way in to the Selection Camp, and forgoing the NHL’ers, four or five OHL guys played their way out of an invitation to the Selection Camp.
I’m Fred Wallace