Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Canada names U18 World Championship team

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Hockey Canada announced today the 20 players it's taking to the Czech Republic for the World Under 18 Championship that starts in 8 days.

The entire team can be found here. It's interesting that Canada has chosen to take 3 goalies and only 6 defenceman, meaning they'll be in tough should an injury pops up.

10 from the OHL, 7 from the WHL and 3 from the QMJHL make up the team, with 6 players returning from the gold medal winning team at the Ivan Hlnika tournament last summer.

What does stand out is the amount of 2013 draft eligible players on the squad. 4 players were 16 years old for most of the season, while 3 have late birthdays pushing them to next year. In the case of Anthony Mantha, he misses the draft by one day.

2 comments:

Brock Otten said...

Just to add guys, Craig Button is reporting (via twitter), that Hockey Canada will still name 3 players to the roster at a later date. That's probably where we'll get that 7th defenseman.

Eetu Huisman said...

Since they only have named 18 skaters, they still have room for three more. I guess they're waiting for some enforcements from the CHL playoffs...