Victoria Royals defenceman Joe Hicketts will go to the Canadian junior team selection camp this month more as an establishment figure than outsider, as he was last year in making the national team out of seemingly nowhere and winning world championship gold.
The native of Kamloops is the lone undrafted player among 26 NHL draftees invited. (The three youngest invitees are projected to go high in next year’s draft). Yet the persistent Hicketts, who was eventually signed as a free agent by the Detroit Red Wings, comes into camp as one of the leaders of the Canadian team that will attempt to defend its gold medal when the 2016 world junior tournament opens at 11 a.m. PT on Boxing Day in Helsinki with a pool game against the Americans.
Hicketts is among three returnees from the gold-medallist 2015 Canadian side, along with Brayden Point of the Moose Jaw Warriors and Lawson Crouse of the Kingston Frontenacs. With that comes a sense of confidence and ease.
“I’m not as nervous going into the national camp as last year,” said Hicketts.
Last year’s run to the gold medal came on home ice in Montreal and Toronto. This time, Canada will be attempting to win on European ice for the first time since 2008.
“Hopefully, I get the chance to win the tournament again,” said Hicketts, who had three assists and a plus-three rating in seven 2015 tournament games.
There doesn’t seem to be a scenario, other than injury, in which Hicketts isn’t a lock to make this Canadian team. In all likelihood, the Royals captain will be wearing at least an ‘A’ for assistant captain, if not ‘C’ for captain to succeed Curtis Lazar, now with the Ottawa Senators of the NHL.
Hicketts captained the WHL team during one of its two games last month against the Russian juniors. The undersized but mobile blue-liner is currently second in Royals team scoring with two goals and 26 assists for 28 points in 27 games and leads the WHL in points by a defenceman. He is the all-time Chilliwack Bruins/Victoria Royals franchise leader in points by a blue-liner with 140 in his career and is the face of the franchise.
The Canadian camp runs Dec. 10-14 at the MasterCard Centre in Etobicoke, Ont. It will take Canadian team and Royals head coach Dave Lowry, Hicketts and Victoria equipment manager Matt Auerbach away from Royals duties for a good swath of the WHL season from next week until early January.
“Any opportunity you get to represent your country, you jump at it every chance you get,” said Lowry, who was assistant coach of the 2015 gold-medallist Canadian team.
As 2016 Canadian head coach, the question Lowry will be asked most is whether the Vancouver Canucks will release forward Jake Virtanen to play in the world junior tournament.
“You take the best players available,” said Lowry.
“As for those eligible [U-20] players in the NHL, we will have to wait until the roster freeze [Canada must finalize its roster on Dec. 20]. NHL teams will wait to the end.”
Lowry will have two goaltenders, 11 blue-liners and 17 forwards to work with in Etobicoke, as he and management decide on the final 22-player roster.
The 10 WHL players invited are blue-liners Hicketts, Hayden Fleury of the Red Deer Rebels, Abbotsford’s Noah Juulsen of the Everett Silvertips, Travis Sanheim of the Calgary Hitmen, and forwards Point, Coquitlam’s Mathew Barzal of the Seattle Thunderbirds, Rourke Chartier and Nick Merkley of the Kelowna Rockets and Jayce Hawryluk and John Quenneville from the Brandon Wheat Kings.
