In a normal year, the Victoria Royals might have had their eventual replacement for defenceman Joe Hicketts waiting for them right here on the Island.
But with the Royals winning the regular-season championship, they will pick 22nd and last in the first round of the Western Hockey League bantam draft Thursday in Calgary.
That means Jacson Alexander of Esquimalt, projected to be chosen between fifth and 15th in the first round, is unlikely to fall to the hometown Royals.
“That would be really cool, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen,” said Alexander, who plays with the Shawnigan Lake School Bantam Prep team.
The dynamic 15-year-old, who began with the Victoria Ice Hawks before playing for Racquet Club, is a five-foot-10, 168-pound two-way defenceman who had 11 goals and 13 assists for 24 points in 25 league games. He added a goal and two assists in six games as a call-up to the Shawnigan Lake School Midget Prep team.
Defensively, the former Rockheights student plays tough and can close the gap quickly on opposing attackers.
Alexander, also a standout in lacrosse, said the NHL defenceman he most patterns himself after is Duncan Keith. But he also certainly looks like the second coming of mobile Island-produced former Juan de Fuca minor hockey blue-liner Tyson Barrie of the Colorado Avalanche.
Alexander was tagged as one to watch at an early age. But he has been through a lot emotionally the past two years after his father, Darin Alexander, succumbed to cancer in September of 2014 at the age of 50. Dad Darin was also a five-foot-10 defenceman (although Jacson is projected to grow two more inches) who played in the B.C. Hockey League for the Langley Eagles before a four-season U.S. collegiate NCAA career with the University of Illinois-Chicago that concluded as captain.
“Hockey has helped me through the last two years, along with my family,” said Jacson Alexander.
The latter includes mother Denese and 18-year-old sister Olivia, also a hockey player, who is headed next season to play in the CIS for the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns.
Darin Alexander was always at the rink with his two children as a volunteer coach and also board member of the Victoria Minor Hockey Association. The 2014-15 VMHA season was dedicated to Darin’s memory, with players wearing helmet stickers in his honour.
“Sports has been a big part of our lives,” said Jacson Alexander.
And it’s about to get bigger, with Alexander the most touted Island player for the WHL bantam draft since defenceman Josh Anderson of Duncan went third overall in the 2013 first round to the Prince George Cougars.
“I was nervous to start the season, because I am most hard on myself, but I’ve also made a point of having fun and just enjoying it,” said Alexander, about the pressure of being so closely scrutinized.
“I just put all that other stuff out of my mind and concentrate on playing hockey.”
Fishing off Ogden Point also acts as a stress reliever for a young man looking to go places. The question as to where that journey will take him, at least in the WHL portion of it, will be answered Thursday.
The Kootenay Ice, who suffered through a last-place, 12-win season, won the WHL bantam draft lottery and will select first. The Ice will be followed in the selection order by the other non-playoff WHL teams: Vancouver, Saskatoon, Swift Current, Tri-City and Medicine Hat.
The Royals will have the regular 22nd pick through all rounds, with a few exceptions in the latter rounds, because of past trades and also pending any deals up to Thursday.
Players picked in the bantam draft are limited to five games in the ensuing WHL regular season. They can become full-time WHL rookies the season after that at the age of 16.
