Riders look to end seven-game slide in showdown against Stamps
12h ago
Riders take on the Calgary Stampeders for the first time this season on Friday.
Regina Pats centre Connor Bedard has been invited to Canada’s national junior team selection camp for the 2022 world junior hockey championship.
The 35 invitees will attend the camp Dec. 9-12 in Calgary.
“Growing up as a kid, you watch that tournament, but to just get the opportunity to go there and work my hardest to make the team is really special and a cool feeling,” Bedard said in a media release.
Bedard, 16, has 11 goals and six assists in 21 games for the Pats so far in the 2021-22 WHL season.
He was the first player in league history to be granted exceptional status, which allowed him to play full time in the WHL as a 15-year-old last season.
Bedard was named an East Division all-star and the Pats’ rookie of the year after recording 12 goals and 16 assists in 15 games in the East Division bubble in Regina.
The product of North Vancouver, B.C., helped Canada win gold at the 2021 under-18 world championship in Texas.
“He’s one of I think a half-dozen guys in the (WHL) who can turn the game around with one play,” Pats head coach-GM John Paddock said in the release.
“It’s an honour for our organization and for him. That’s a big loss to our team, but it’s something we expected to happen whether it was this year or not.”
Also invited to the camp was defenceman Kaiden Guhle, whom the Prince Albert Raiders traded to the Edmonton Oil Kings on Wednesday. The 19-year-old product of Sherwood Park, Alta., is one of three returnees from last year’s world junior entry that won the silver medal.
Moose Jaw Warriors blueliner Daemon Hunt, a 19-year-old who hails from Brandon, also was invited to the camp.
There weren’t any Saskatchewan-born players invited.
The camp is to include practices as well as two games against a team of U Sports all-stars on Dec. 11 and 12. The team then is to head to Banff, Alta., for a training camp Dec. 14-19.
The 2022 world junior championship tournament is to be held in Edmonton and Red Deer. The tournament is to begin on Boxing Day, with Canada to open against the Czech Republic. The Canadians also are to play Austria on Dec. 28, Germany on Dec. 29 and Finland on Dec. 31 in the preliminary round.