OTTAWA | Let’s talk one last time about Junior Team Canada.
Hockey Canada finds itself once again plunged into a small crisis after the discomfiture of the last two years. The organization assured that changes would be made.
What will these changes be? After spending the last week in Ottawa and being around the team, then after talking with people in the industry, here is what could help ÉCJ get back on its feet in the coming years.
No longer play politics with the choices of coaches…
Hockey Canada relied on experience by hiring Dave Cameron, and it didn’t work. Does that automatically mean that the strategy of going with an old hand is not the right one? Absolutely not!
However, Hockey Canada will need to modernize its way of thinking in this regard. Many hockey men with a modern vision of the game, are just waiting for this chance across the country.
In addition, let’s stop playing politics with the selection of coaches and choose one from each league to please everyone. That the selected coach can choose his assistants himself, whether they all come from the same league or not.
It is simply abnormal that a hockey man like Sylvain Favreau, probably the next QMJHL coach to make the jump to the professionals, has been relegated to a supporting role by being placed in the press box.
Marc DesRosiers-QMI Agency
Clearly, we have to wonder if Dave Cameron didn’t have his close guard in assistant Chris Lazary, another OHL coach, and veteran Mike Johnston who no longer even manages in the WHL.
If we want to play politics and avoid friction, we should alternate leagues each year. That we allow a coach from each league to lead Junior Team Canada, each in turn, and to bring with him coaches with whom he knows he will get along well and in whom he has full confidence.
…or implement full-time staff
Scott Salmond raised this possibility on Friday. Having a full-time coach would provide a certain stability both in personnel and in the approach and internal philosophy.
Hockey Canada tried this approach with André Tourigny, in 2021-2022, by hiring him as a full-time coach with the national men’s program, before he left for the Arizona Coyotes.
Rob Wallator / Hockey Canada
3. Simply take the best players
This was another criticism.
Hockey Canada needs to stop overanalyzing its player selection process. This year, so much emphasis was placed on having players not be one-dimensional offensively that the result was completely the opposite: they struggled to score goals throughout the tournament and that intensity led to many penalties.
Friday, in a very interesting thread on “intensity and aggressiveness.”
After all, the Americans did not hesitate to select Trevor Connelly and Cole Eiserman in their training, two players considered one-dimensional. In a limited role, Eiserman continued to make an impact and scored important goals on the power play, including the game-winner in the semi-final against the Czechs.
On this subject, one of the players ignored by Hockey Canada and who caused a lot of discussion was Beckett Sennecke. The forward and third overall pick in the last NHL draft, by the Anaheim Ducks, thumbed his nose at ÉCJ by being named the OHL player of the month for December.
From what we have been able to learn, however, Sennecke has had some off-ice escapades in the past (nothing illegal) which would have cooled Hockey Canada, due to the numerous scandals they had to deal with in the last few years.
This probably explains it.
