Wanted: World-class players committed to ending the medal drought for Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championship

Every year, when many Canadians are trying to find time for Christmas shopping and trying to forget the credit card bills that will accompany it, the coaches and support staff for the Canadian world junior hockey team come up with a mantra – or two. They then take those catch-phrases and foist them onto the media to disseminate to the country’s hockey faithful.

In the past, we’ve had the hard-working lunch pail kids of Dave Cameron, Steve Spott’s team built for speed, and Brent Sutter droning over the elite group assembled to play the Canadian way last year in Malmo, Sweden.

True to form, this is the year of head coach Benoit Groulx’s world-class player. According to Groulx, who coaches the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Gatineau Olympiques, it’s no longer enough to be just a good player in the Canadian Hockey League to make this team.

So what separates the world class from the run-of-the-mill star players in the CHL?

“It’s also about their attitude,” Groulx said Thursday at the opening of Canada’s final selection camp in Toronto. “Can they block shots? Can they forecheck hard? Can they track hard? Can they make the big plays when it matters the most?

“To me that’s the difference between a good CHL player, and there’s a lot of them, but we got to have on this team world-class players. Guys that can elevate their play and this is what we’re looking for.”

They’re also looking for a medal.

No gold since 2009 and two consecutive fourth-place finishes most recently have amped up the anxiety when it comes to Canada’s hockey superiority complex. We’re still great, but the rest of the world has become better, although that is of little consolation to the fans which have turned this Christmas pastime into a highly-scrutinized, lucrative holiday tournament.

Having the tournament back in Canada only cranks up that angst. The pressure at home is not only on the players but also squarely on Hockey Canada’s management staff.

“There’s no question,” said Scott Salmond, Hockey Canada’s vice-president of hockey operations. “There’s pressure every year and I think that every time you make some change and some decisions that are different from maybe what they are, then you’re going to own some of that for sure. If you’re in this business and you don’t feel pressure to win then you’re probably in the wrong business because that’s the way it is.

“What I’m concerned about is making sure we’ve got a gold medal performance from our staff and from our players and then we’ll see what happens from there.”

Salmond confirmed on Thursday that Tampa Bay Lightning forward Jonathan Drouin will not return for his third straight tournament. Talks are still ongoing with the Vancouver Canucks and Ottawa Senators about possibly getting forwards Bo Horvat and Curtis Lazar, who both played in the tournament last year, to join Team Canada for the 10-day tournament.

“I think the other discussions with the other teams are promising,” said Salmond, adding that the injury situations for those NHL clubs would be a determining factor in allowing the likes of Horvat and Lazar to leave.

NHL teams have until the Dec. 19 roster freeze to loan players to Team Canada for the tournament. At present only the New York Rangers have allowed forward Anthony Duclair to join the squad, something he was genuinely excited about despite leaving the NHL.

“Being in Canada and being in my hometown of Montreal I really wanted to be part of this,” said Duclair. “I’m happy I’m here.”

Getting either Lazar or Horvat – or both – could be the difference between a medal or remaining empty-handed, although the man who helped select the 30 players at camp believes they have a good group.

“I don’t look at it as pressure; I look at it as a challenge,” said Hockey Canada’s head scout Ryan Jankowski. “We’re at this point where we feel we have the best 30 players to put a team together here and I like our group of players. I’m really confident with what we have that we’re going to have some success at this event.”

The players Jankowski is banking on have a wide range of specific skills. It’s predominantly an older group – mostly 1995-birth years – and a big group, particularly on the blueline. Victoria’s Joe Hicketts is the only defender under six foot.

In keeping with his world-class theme, Groulx had the players blocking shots at the team’s first practice at the MasterCard Centre in Toronto. Considering that most of these players at camp are stars on their CHL teams, the art of shot-blocking is often overlooked in the name of safety.

“Sometimes you don’t count on them to block shots because they’re too important to the team and you don’t want to risk injury,” said Groulx. “But in a tournament like (the world juniors) you’re playing for a gold medal and we expect everyone here to sacrifice his body.”

That meant even Connor McDavid, wearing his yellow non-contact jersey, took part in the exercise despite having the cast taken off his broken hand this week. It was only one shot – a weak one at that – but McDavid still completed the task much to Groulx’s chagrin.

“I told him, ‘You know what? I don’t want to have my face on TV tomorrow everywhere for that reason, so get out of there’,” said Groulx.

Canada opens the tournament on Dec. 26 against Slovakia at the Bell Centre and there is no clear timetable as to when cuts will be made to whittle the roster down to 22. Salmond said the final decision could come as late as Canada’s pre-tournament exhibition games leading up to the event.

“That’s the exciting part as camp opens up is to see who now raises their level of play,” said Jankowski. “Now that we’re at this stage we’ll see who raises their game amongst the world-class players in Canada.”

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