Last weekend, the South Cariboo Rec. Centre hosted a primary recruiting hockey camp for the Junior B Sicamous Eagles of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League, and the junior A Dawson Creek Rage of the North American Hockey League.
Several 100 Mile House and area players participated in the camp, including Micky Turner, Damian Lindberg, Mark Boyce, Tyler Craig, Tyler Ward (last year Midget), Reece Forman, Corey Lindberg Johnson, Lukas Vitik, Kevin Raimundo, Michael Montgomery, Travis Wilkie, Derek Schneider (Williams Lake), Brett Harris and Jordan Purcha.
These players were divided up amongst four teams made up of veteran Junior B players and skaters from other communities.
Of the 26 or so players making the all-star game on Sunday, six were from 100 Mile. They included Turner, Forman, Schneider, Raimundo, Vitik and Boyce. Harris, who played in Midget hockey in Prince George, would have also been selected, but he suffered a hand injury that prematurely ended his camp.
Forman received an invitation from Scott Robinson (formerly of 100 Mile and Dawson Creek’s head coach/general manager) to the Rage’s spring evaluation and the main tryout camps this spring and summer respectively.
Each player in this weekend’s camp played six games, so there was a lot of hockey for everyone.
The players invited to the all-star game got a seventh game and the pace of that game was a fair bit faster, as all the veteran Junior players also laced up for it. The game was still very fast albeit there were some very tired legs after seven games in 2.5 days.
The camp was fairly well attended by fans and many of the local hotels, businesses and restaurants benefited greatly. The majority of the players came from out of town and came from the Lower Mainland and Okanagan, as well as Quesnel, Prince George and Peace areas.
It was also a great opportunity for local fans to see some great hockey action.
There were eight players from the existing Sicamous Eagles roster at the event, so they helped boost the level of play for all involved, and it provided a great insight to what Junior hockey in 100 Mile might be like. It also introduced a lot of our local players and fans to that calibre of hockey.
It is very likely some of the local 100 Mile players at this camp could go on to play next season with Sicamous Eagles or other Junior B teams. All the players selected for the all-star game received additional invites to the Eagles’ main camp in August.
Sicamous general manager Wayne March and head coach Blair Robinson said they were pleased with the calibre of play at the camp and plan to return next spring to host another camp if 100 Mile doesn’t have its own team by then.
Bill Forman was the manager of the 100 Mile Midget Reps this season.