A lot has happened since that evening in April.
Four Victoria Royals were drafted and attended NHL development camps and there was a summer of Olympics-watching from Rio to help wash away the memory of that night.
But it never really goes away. It may be there a lifetime.
The Royals open their main training camp at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre on Monday with the spectre of the last millisecond Game 7 Western Hockey League playoff collapse against the Kelowna Rockets still hanging in the air over Blanshard Street.
One might think coming from Minnesota, Jack Walker would be used to it. After all, he has suffered through missed playoff field goals by Gary Anderson and Blair Walsh, and a fateful Brett Favre interception that sorrowfully fester in Vikings football lore.
But it’s different when it happens to you personally.
“That last game was a heartbreak and it’s been sitting in the back of my mind,” said Walker.
Sitting there festering all through getting drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs and attending Leafs development camp. All through “watching Bolt, Phelps and Biles in Rio.” All through an otherwise happy summer with family and friends back in Edina, Minnesota, which included attending the Chelsea-AC Milan soccer game this month, which opened the new U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
“We [Royals] have a lot more to prove,” said Walker.
One can just sense they have been waiting for the moment when they can start doing just that. It arrives on Monday, with a vast new season laying ahead.
“We took the league by surprise last season,” said Walker.
He knows that won’t be happening again — at least the surprise part. The Royals, with a load of returning talent, can certainly be favourites to repeat as WHL regular-season champions. However, they will do so this year with an Olympic-size archery bullseye attached to the backs of their jerseys. They will not sneak up on anyone this season.
Walker has been among the most consistent, reliable and versatile Royals the past four seasons and returns as an over-age 20-year-old and a rare fifth-season WHLer. He knows other Royals players will be looking up to him.
“Every year, you are with a team, you are thrust more and more into a leadership role,” Walker said.
Even though he is on the quieter side in the dressing room and on the ice. “I lead more by example,” said Walker, who has played forward and defence for the Royals.
The Royals conclude rookie camp today with scrimmages from 8:15 a.m. to 1:45 p.m.
Among the rookie players almost certain to be carried into main camp is forward Dino Kambeitz from Parker, Colorado, an all-rounder good enough to also be recruited by NCAA Div. 1 teams for field lacrosse.
“I am more comfortable this year than I was in [Royals] rookie camp last year,” Kambeitz said.
For one thing, Kambeitz has grown two inches and become 25 pounds heavier over the past year and is now just over six-feet and 185 pounds. “It would be a huge accomplishment to make this team,” he said. Especially on such a veteran-laden roster that offers very few openings.
One unexpectedly came up when forward Vladimir Bobylev’s breakout season with the Royals was rewarded over the summer with a pro KHL contract with Moscow Spartak in his native Russia. Ahead of Kambeitz on the rookie depth chart at forward, however, is Victoria’s 2015 first-round bantam-draft selection Eric Florchuk, a seamless and swift Canada U-17 prospect who perfectly fits the Royals ethos that speed kills.
“I know I have to skate and play fast because of such a quick team they have here in Victoria,” Kambetiz said.
“I would love to play here, if not this season, then the next.”
This is quite the sporting family. Dad Jim Kambeitz, a chiropractor in Colorado, played for the Victoria Cougars during a five-season WHL career which also included stints in Kamloops, Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw. Dino’s brother Dimitri is also a hockey and lacrosse player who skated in Royals camp last year. Dino and Dimitri Kambeitz’s cousin, Alex Demopoulos, is the all-time assists leader and No. 3 in all-time points in University of Denver field-lacrosse history, while cousin Stefan Demopoulos won the 2015 NCAA Frozen Four hockey championship with the Providence Friars.
Even family friends live for sports. Dino Kambeitz grew up with Mal Pugh, the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic women’s soccer team in Rio this summer.
Kambeitz hopes to put that well-rounded sporting background to good use on Blanshard Street over the next few years.
“My lacrosse skills have helped me a lot in hockey,” he said.
Main camp practices on Monday run from 10 to 11:45 a.m. and scrimmages from 2 to 7 p.m. On Tuesday, practice is from 9:30 to 11 a.m., with scrimmages from 2 to 7 p.m.
The Royals will host their annual Blue/White intra-squad game at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Memorial Centre.
