Angelo Esposito leads Patrick Wiercioch (middle) through a drill at the junior team selection camp yesterdayEdit: Wiercioch's "Red Team" won their game last night 7-2. Last chance to impress the coaches is today's final scrimmage. Go Patrick.
From: Faceoff.com
OTTAWA -- Three years ago, when he started to play major midget hockey in British Columbia, Ottawa Senators prospect Patrick Wiercioch was one of those 99-pound weaklings who gets sand kicked in his face.
Wiercioch is now a 6-4, 178-pound defenseman at the University of Denver, but back in major midget he stood only 5-10 and weighed just 127 pounds.
He was barely big enough to take out the trash, and hardly someone who had the look of a future NHL defenceman about him.
Now, though, he has got a chance to make the team that will represent Canada in the world junior hockey championships at Ottawa, and the Senators are counting on him to be a big part of their future on defence, perhaps within two years.
It has been a long, almost improbable road to this week's national junior hockey team selection camp.
But Wiercioch kept growing and he kept improving, and by the end of the 2007-08 season scouts were flocking to watch him play for the next team on his journey, the Omaha Lancers of the United States Hockey League.
His promising start hit a bump when he broke his right thumb late in November and missed 20 games. That temporarily took him off everyone's radar.
But when Wiercioch returned, he turned it up a notch. He was the team's second-leading scorer (two goals, nine assists) in the playoffs and helped the team win the Anderson Cup as the league champion.
One scout here for the world juniors, which begin on Dec. 26, said yesterday that of the 38 players vying for spots on Team Canada, Wiercioch was the most improved player last year.
He has continued to improve at Denver, where he has been the team's best defenceman and the power-play quarterback. In 15 games, he has had seven goals and seven assists.
If he had been playing major junior hockey in Canada, more people -- general managers, specifically -- would have seen him. But GMs don't often get to USHL games, so Wiercioch remained something of an unknown quantity. Senators general manager Bryan Murray didn't even see him until three weeks ago when he watched Wiercioch play a couple of games in Denver.
The immediate challenge for Wiercioch is making the junior team. This is the first time he has competed for either a regional or national spot on a Canadian team. That won't count against him, but he does have to make himself noticed in a pretty good field.
He's excited, but not awed.
"It's definitely an honour," he said of being invited to camp. "I was probably surprised, a little bit, especially because you know most of the guys who are here.
"Not too many freshmen in college get the invite to Team Canada, so it's definitely a special feeling. It was a lot of nerves on the flight coming up here, but once I got around the guys and on the ice, it all went away."
Wiercioch's camp got off to somewhat of a rough start Friday night in the first red-and-white game when he had two turnovers on his first shift.
But a few bumps and bends in the road are nothing unusual for this hockey player.
Before Denver came into the picture, Wiercioch had initially committed to playing at Wisconsin, but that meant he would have had to spend another year at Omaha because Wisconsin didn't have a spot on defence open. They had all been taken by other recruits.
But when the Senators drafted him in June, his timetable changed. He needed the playing time. Denver had a spot for him. So he switched.
He also thought that playing college hockey right away would help him better manage the tremendous growth spurt he's going through.
"I felt I'd have time to make that adjustment, that I wouldn't be as pressured or rushed," he said. "I'd have more time to practise, more time to take care of my body.
"Looking at my body and how much it grew and how lanky I am, that was one of the choices I had to make, and I felt it was the right one."
Like everyone at this week's junior selection camp, Wiercioch badly wants a spot on the team. But he's also trying to make sure he uses the camp as another step in his development.
"I think it's just important to better myself as a player," he said. "There's so much talent around here, it's tough to say whether you're going to make the team. But you definitely want to take a lot out of this camp if you want to leave a better player than when you came in.
"It's really easy to do that with such good players."
OTTAWA -- Three years ago, when he started to play major midget hockey in British Columbia, Ottawa Senators prospect Patrick Wiercioch was one of those 99-pound weaklings who gets sand kicked in his face.
Wiercioch is now a 6-4, 178-pound defenseman at the University of Denver, but back in major midget he stood only 5-10 and weighed just 127 pounds.
He was barely big enough to take out the trash, and hardly someone who had the look of a future NHL defenceman about him.
Now, though, he has got a chance to make the team that will represent Canada in the world junior hockey championships at Ottawa, and the Senators are counting on him to be a big part of their future on defence, perhaps within two years.
It has been a long, almost improbable road to this week's national junior hockey team selection camp.
But Wiercioch kept growing and he kept improving, and by the end of the 2007-08 season scouts were flocking to watch him play for the next team on his journey, the Omaha Lancers of the United States Hockey League.
His promising start hit a bump when he broke his right thumb late in November and missed 20 games. That temporarily took him off everyone's radar.
But when Wiercioch returned, he turned it up a notch. He was the team's second-leading scorer (two goals, nine assists) in the playoffs and helped the team win the Anderson Cup as the league champion.
One scout here for the world juniors, which begin on Dec. 26, said yesterday that of the 38 players vying for spots on Team Canada, Wiercioch was the most improved player last year.
He has continued to improve at Denver, where he has been the team's best defenceman and the power-play quarterback. In 15 games, he has had seven goals and seven assists.
If he had been playing major junior hockey in Canada, more people -- general managers, specifically -- would have seen him. But GMs don't often get to USHL games, so Wiercioch remained something of an unknown quantity. Senators general manager Bryan Murray didn't even see him until three weeks ago when he watched Wiercioch play a couple of games in Denver.
The immediate challenge for Wiercioch is making the junior team. This is the first time he has competed for either a regional or national spot on a Canadian team. That won't count against him, but he does have to make himself noticed in a pretty good field.
He's excited, but not awed.
"It's definitely an honour," he said of being invited to camp. "I was probably surprised, a little bit, especially because you know most of the guys who are here.
"Not too many freshmen in college get the invite to Team Canada, so it's definitely a special feeling. It was a lot of nerves on the flight coming up here, but once I got around the guys and on the ice, it all went away."
Wiercioch's camp got off to somewhat of a rough start Friday night in the first red-and-white game when he had two turnovers on his first shift.
But a few bumps and bends in the road are nothing unusual for this hockey player.
Before Denver came into the picture, Wiercioch had initially committed to playing at Wisconsin, but that meant he would have had to spend another year at Omaha because Wisconsin didn't have a spot on defence open. They had all been taken by other recruits.
But when the Senators drafted him in June, his timetable changed. He needed the playing time. Denver had a spot for him. So he switched.
He also thought that playing college hockey right away would help him better manage the tremendous growth spurt he's going through.
"I felt I'd have time to make that adjustment, that I wouldn't be as pressured or rushed," he said. "I'd have more time to practise, more time to take care of my body.
"Looking at my body and how much it grew and how lanky I am, that was one of the choices I had to make, and I felt it was the right one."
Like everyone at this week's junior selection camp, Wiercioch badly wants a spot on the team. But he's also trying to make sure he uses the camp as another step in his development.
"I think it's just important to better myself as a player," he said. "There's so much talent around here, it's tough to say whether you're going to make the team. But you definitely want to take a lot out of this camp if you want to leave a better player than when you came in.
"It's really easy to do that with such good players."
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