A notable 2015 Canucks summer development camp at Shawnigan Lake School featured the likes of Brock Boeser, Jake Virtanen, Jordan Subban, Jared McCann and Thatcher Demko. The dreams starts here. Sometimes they are realized with that organization, other times not. Boeser and Demko became keystone Canucks, but not McCann, Virtanen or Subban.
The newest batch of youthful pro hopefuls started skating in the 2024 NHL summer development camps Monday, with others beginning today, through Saturday. Island players, or those from Island clubs, are dotted in the camps across North America.
The biggest name among them is Matthew Wood from Nanaimo, the former Victoria Grizzlies BCHL star, taken 15th overall in the 2023 NHL draft by Nashville. Wood is a load at six-foot-three and is switching from the UConn Huskies in the NCAA to the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers this season. He was the youngest player on the Canadian team at the 2024 world junior championship and will be a team leader for Canada in the 2025 world juniors beginning Boxing Day in Ottawa. The Predators began their summer prospects camp at the Centennial Sportsplex next to the Parthenon in downtown Nashville on Monday and concludes with the Future Stars Game on Saturday at the Ford Ice Centre in suburban Bellevue, Tennessee.
Among the Islanders with the shortest trip is Ollie Josephson, the Victoria centre plucked by the Seattle Kraken in the 2024 NHL draft Saturday. The camp, at the Kraken training facility in Northgate, began Monday.
“It’s awesome that it’s so close to home,” said Josephson, who came out of the Pacific Coast Hockey Academy Sea Devils program in Langford and plays in the WHL for the Red Deer Rebels.
“I know I am going to have to put on more weight eventually going up against grown men from the AHL and ECHL,” said the Langford product.
“But I have never avoided physical play or contact and I believe I have a pro style that projects well as a guy who is not flashy but is a good two-way forward.”
Josephson, a product of the Spectrum Secondary hockey academy and Team Canada gold medallist from the 2023 Hlinka Gretzky Cup and 2024 world U-18 championship, is the second member of his family to be drafted into the NHL. Dad Mike Josephson, an Oak Bay firefighter who played in the ECHL with the Victoria Salmon Kings, was selected out of the WHL by the Chicago Blackhawks in 1994.
“It’s cool thinking about a father and son both drafted,” said the younger Josephson. “My dad has helped me out a lot.”
Matt Lahey of Victoria, a strapping blue-liner who played for the Nanaimo Clippers of the BCHL last season and is headed to USHL this coming season, was selected by the Maple Leafs on Saturday and is in Toronto this week stating his case to the Leafs’ brass: “I am a big, puck-moving defenceman and the goal is to be known as a defenceman who can be relied on in every situation.”
Graduating Clippers defenceman Isa Parekh, committed to NCAA Bemidji State, has received a development camp invite from the Calgary Flames. He will skate with his highly-regarded brother, defenceman Zayne Parekh, who was selected ninth overall in the first round over the weekend by the Flames. The Clippers are on a clip this week with six-foot-eight former Nanaimo goaltender Cooper Black, who was inked to an entry-level contract with Stanley Cup-champion Florida this spring, blocking shots in the Panthers development camp.
Defenceman Justin Kipkie from the Victoria Royals, selected in last year’s NHL draft by the Arizona Coyotes, will have a change of scenery this year with the franchise becoming Utah HC. Kipkie opened camp Monday in Park City, Utah, with the likes of 2022 and 2023 first-round draft picks Conor Geekie, Maveric Lamoureux, Dmitriy Simashev and Daniil Butt. It will conclude Saturday with a scrimmage at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.
Another Royals blue-liner, Nate Misskey, freshly selected by San Jose on Saturday in the 2024 draft, is at the Sharks prospect camp starting today at Tech CU Arena in the Silicon Valley with top overall NHL selection Macklin Celebrini, 11th overall pick Sam Dickinson and former Royals captain Gannon Laroque.
The Canucks, meanwhile, have begun their prospects camp at UBC with the touted trio of Tom Willander, a world junior silver medallist with Sweden out of Boston University, U-18 world championship tournament Swedish forward Melvin Fernstrom and Memorial Cup-champion forward Josh Bloom.
