Many wondered why Canada turned its nose up at Tij Iginla ahead of his training camp for the World Junior Hockey Championship, but now we have a reason.
The season of the sixth overall pick in the last National League draft is over. The Kelowna Rockets, his Western Junior League (WHL) club, announced Wednesday evening that the 18-year-old forward had undergone hip surgery and would not return to play in the regular season.
This is very bad news for someone who had a good start to the campaign with 32 points on his record, including 14 goals, in 21 games. Canada thus had to turn to a replacement, although promising Beckett Sennecke and Michael Hage were also ignored.
• Also read: Not an easy week for this top prospect
• Also read: Signature in the NCAA: a first for a Quebec football program
-The son of Jarome Iginla had been impressive in 2023-2024 with 47 goals and 84 points in 64 games with the Rockets. At 17, he was not selected for the World Juniors, but Utah HC selected him very early in the draft.
Besides Iginla, other players whose names were called early at the most recent amateur auction like Macklin Celebrini (1st), Artyom Levshunov (2nd), Sennecke (3rd) and Cayden Lindstrom (4th) have all been affected by injuries more or less serious in recent months.
In collaboration with our partners
Canada
