When you get a recommendation from Alex Newhook, you don’t Delay. The Victoria Grizzlies didn’t. As a result, they have landed a player ranked for the 2021 NHL draft.
Forward Timmy Delay from Needham, Massachusetts, will join the Grizzlies for the 2021-22 B.C. Hockey League season. Delay said he felt he needed a season of junior hockey, in which to mature after high school, before playing at Boston College of the NCAA.
There were no shortage of connective human signposts pointing to Victoria. Among them was Newhook, the former Grizzlies star and current Boston College standout and 2019 NHL first-round draft pick of the Colorado Avalanche, who this year won world junior championship silver with Canada. Another strong recommendation came from another former Grizzlies forward, Riley Hughes, the New York Rangers draft pick who plays in the NCAA at Northeastern. Hughes is an alumnus of St. Sebastian’s Prep School of Needham, from where Delay graduates in June.
If that wasn’t enough, Delay grew up with and is good friends with current Grizzlies forward Chase McInnis, who is committed to Northeastern. The connections are myriad and complex. McInnis is the son of 12-season NHLer and U.S. Olympian Marty McInnis, who is assistant coach of Boston College. So Delay will be coached by the elder McInnis at Boston College while playing opposite the younger McInnis and Hughes in conference games against rival Northeastern.
But first will come the season of seasoning in the BCHL.
“So many people [Newhook, Hughes, McInnis] told me Victoria is the best place to get that experience,” said Delay.
“I looked at the franchise’s NHL alumni like [Tyler Bozak and Jamie and Jordie Benn], and the amount of players who have gone onto the NCAA from the team, and decided to make the jump across the continent. I believe it is going to be a cool and valuable experience.”
Especially with every indication the post-vaccine 2021-22 season will be more normal. This Grade 12 season was hardly that as St. Sebastain’s was able to play only 10 games.
“We made the most of it,” said Delay, who had 13 goals and 30 points in 28 games as a Grade 11 in 2019-20.
Both Boston College and Central Scouting, which has Delay ranked for the fourth through seventh rounds of the 2021 NHL draft, clearly believe they have seen enough to make a judgement.
“I’m a fast, skilled forward,” said Delay, when asked for a self-assessment.
Delay was also all that in lacrosse and had to make a decision, which he did in favour of hockey. The all-rounder is talented enough to also play NCAA Div. 1 in lacrosse – he was on youth rep travel teams to Long Island, New York, and Baltimore — and said he would have loved to have become a rare dual-sport NCAA athlete but Boston College does not offer lacrosse.
Delay, however, certainly seems to have found his stride in hockey and without delay.
ICE CHIPS: Grizzlies’ 20-year-old blue-liner Jake Veilleux has committed to UConn of the NCAA, where former Grizzlies defenceman and 2019 NHL fourth-round Florida Panthers draft pick Carter Berger also plays … The BCHL is still awaiting a decision from the provincial health office regarding a possible 2020-21 season.
