Medicine Hat Tigers winger Cole Sillinger celebrates after scoring his first career goal against the Edmonton Oil Kings in Game 3 of the Western Hockey League's Eastern Conference quarter-final series on Tuesday, March 26 at the Canalta Centre. -- NEWS PHOTO RYAN McCRACKEN
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Cole Sillinger’s off-season has been anything but dull.
The 16-year-old Regina product has been hard at work preparing for his first full season with the Medicine Hat Tigers, and last week he got the opportunity to showcase his skills alongside the nation’s top talent in his age group as one of 112 players at Hockey Canada’s under-17 development camp in Calgary.
“It was a really surreal and fun event,” said Sillinger. “My focus wasn’t to go and try to be the best of all of them – obviously that’s in my mind, too – but I just wanted to go take the experience in and just enjoy the week with people I haven’t met before.”
The World Under-17 Hockey Challenge will be hosted by Medicine Hat and Swift Current in November, with more than half of the matchups taking place in the Gas City – including the gold and bronze medal games. Given that he could be the only member of the Tigers to lace up his skates at the Canalta Centre over the duration of the tournament, Sillinger says making one of Canada’s three rosters at the event is always in the back of his mind.Â
“That’s obviously something I’ve thought about and continue to think about,” he said. “If I was selected to be a part of that tournament it would be an extreme honour for me. It’s something that I’ll really look forward to, but it makes it that much more special with it being in Medicine Hat and potentially being the only Tiger in that tournament. I think that’s something really cool.”
Hockey Canada head scout Brad McEwen says he was impressed with what Sillinger brought to the table at the camp. While he believes the 6-foot, 181-pound lefty fell victim to a bit of fatigue over the course of the week, McEwen says that’s by design.
“Cole was good. I think one thing with this camp is that the kids come in and they understand there’s going to be a lot of work and it’s a hard camp, but when they get through it, it’s a really hard camp,” said McEwen. “So I think a lot of the guys, as it went along, fatigued a little bit. And that’s a little bit how we set it up – the tournament itself is hard, because they play five games in six days. I think he found it a little fatiguing but he’s a really good player and we’re excited to get him on his team.”
Sillinger agreed it was a non-stop week of demanding work, but the constant challenge never really struck him as a chore.Â
“I had so much fun that during the week I didn’t think that, ‘Oh I’ve got to go do this,’ or something. I took it as, ‘I get to go do this, I’m here and there are a lot of people who want to be in my shoes,'” said Sillinger. “At the end of the camp our bodies were sore, we were challenged throughout the week with 14-hour days, on the ice twice a day and three games at the end. But it was more of a fun experience and I was just doing that rather than thinking about how hard it was.”
While he was held pointless over his three games with Canada Gold, Sillinger says he learned a lot and managed to garner some significant chemistry with 15-year-old phenom Matthew Savoie – a 5-foot-9, 174-pound centre who was denied exceptional status in the Western Hockey League and later committed to the University of Denver.Â
“I’ve known Matty for a couple of years now and every time we play against each other, or play with each other, or train together or even just play a simple game of golf together, we’re always competing against each other. We’re always trying to make each other better,” said Sillinger. “Throughout the week we had our battles. I think our chemistry grows every time I see him.”
Sillinger added the camp was a great opportunity to stay sharp with pre-season waiting just around the corner. Given the gruelling nature of the camp, the first-round bantam draft pick says he learned a lot about the importance of preparation and conditioning, both physical and mental.
“Obviously there were some great players there. One thing I would take away from that is how important your cool-downs and your warmups are, and just your mental preparation,” he said. “I think that’s something we kind of focused on there a lot more than usual – your mental preparation, your self-talk and stuff like that, the little things that are going to put you above the great players that are there.”
