Under 18 Team Named

Hockey Canada announced today, the roster for the upcoming IIHF Under 18 Hockey Championships. The tournament is being held in Germany this year, and Canada opens the tournament against the Czech's on April 15.

Obviously the team is going to look to rebound from last year's grim result (a near relegation). Definitely a lot of pressure on this year's crop of players.

The OHL had 14 players named to the team (making up the vast majority of the squad).

Goalies:
Malcolm Subban
Andrew D'Agostini

Defenseman:
Ryan Murphy
Scott Harrington
Cody Ceci
Slater Koekkoek

Forwards:
Daniel Catenacci
Brett Ritchie
Nick Cousins
Mark Scheifele
Austen Brassard
Eric Locke
Alan Quine
Seth Griffith

Definitely an interesting team, with no real surprises on the OHL end (although the WHL fans seem to be pretty up in arms about the exclusion of Myles Bell and Michael St. Croix).

Andrew D'Agostini is probably the most curious choice, but if you consider the real lack of "emergent" talent that Hockey Canada had to choose from, it should come as no surprise that they would take someone a staff member is familiar with. And that staff member is goalie coach Ron Tugnutt (D'Agostini's goalie coach in Peterborough).

Interesting that so many players from the OHL who were a part of that Gold medal winning Ivan Hlinka team this summer are not a part of this roster. Those being Tyson Teichmann (the starting goalie of that team), Michael Curtis, and David Broll.

Lastly, I was cheering for Ryan Sproul to make this team, but when the Kitchener Rangers lost making Ryan Murphy available, I think that sealed his fate. No offense meant to Sproul, but he's at his best when he's running the powerplay (at this point in time) and with Ryan Murphy back there too, there probably wasn't a lot of room for another offensive type of guy.

The full roster can be found here.