NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN - Canada Red's Logan Stankoven and Peter Reynolds celebrate after scoring in a World Under-17 Hockey Challenge pre-tournament game against Team U.S.A. on Thursday at the Canalta Centre.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Logan Stankoven isn’t taking a single moment for granted.
The 16-year-old Kamloops Blazers forward says he knows how many young men would love to stand in his skates as a member of Team Canada Red at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, and he won’t be wasting a second of the golden opportunity.
“It’s an honour, for sure. It’s pretty special to wear the maple leaf,” said Stankoven, whose Canada Red squad will open Group B action Saturday in Swift Current against the reigning champion Russians at 7 p.m. “It’s a pretty surreal feeling but you have to take it with a grain of salt. You have to work hard and listen to the coaches and what they have to say about your game, then add that to your next shift.”
Stankoven made an immediate impact with Canada Red by scoring the opening goal in his team’s eventual 7-6 shootout loss to the U.S.A. in Thursday’s pre-tournament tilt at the Canalta Centre. The 5-foot-6, 167-pound Kamloops product has already been making an impact in the Western Hockey League with four goals and two assists over his first 14 contests with the Blazers, but says there’s still plenty of room to grow.
“It’s been good. We kind of had a rough start there going 0-3 but we made a few acquisitions, brought some guys in and we’ve been doing really well since then,” said Stankoven, whose Blazers sat atop the B.C. Division with a 9-5-0-0 record entering Friday’s games. “It’s been really good so far and hopefully we can continue that throughout the season.”
Stankoven has been working alongside a familiar name for Tigers fans, as former Tabby head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston has been serving as the Blazer’s bench boss after being let go by Medicine Hat in the off-season.
“It’s pretty cool to have him as your coach. He knows a lot about the game and can teach you lots of stuff, so it’s been great,” said Stankoven.
“He’s got lots of background history here obviously and I’ve really liked him so far. He’s a great coach and an even better guy.”
While they came out on the wrong end of their pre-tournament barnburner, Canada Red assistant coach Kurtis Foster says there were a lot of positives to be taken from the game in approach of their opener against Russia.
“Any time you play the U.S. you get a little extra fire in your belly. I thought our guys did a good job of coming out with energy early,” said Foster, whose squad went 1-for-3 with the man advantage while allowing two power-play goals on seven chances.
“We definitely made some mistakes and some things we’ve got to clean up, but a lot of it is just principles. It’s not lack of skill or lack of effort, it’s just parts of our game we need to clean up. I think for the most part when you can play a team like that as close as we did, it puts us in a good mindset going into our next game.”
Russia will be looking to recapture the magic that propelled them to the top of the podium last season. The reigning champs are coming off a 4-2 pre-tournament victory over Cole Sillinger’s Canada White, with all four of Russia’s goals coming in the third period.
Danila Iurov led the comeback with two assists, while Vsevolod Gaidamak, Artem Svishchev, Gleb Ivanov and Matvei Nadvorniy scored in succession to lead the Russians to victory.
Group B action continues Sunday at Swift’s Innovation Credit Union iPlex with Finland taking on Sweden at 3 p.m.
The pair of Scandinavian countries will be looking to improve on their podium finishes from last year, when Finland settled for silver following a 2-1 loss to Russia and Sweden took down Canada Red 4-3 for bronze.
Sweden is coming off a lopsided 6-1 pre-tournament victory over the Czech Republic – led by a two-goal performance from Ludwig Persson – while the Finns enter after falling 2-1 to Canada Black in exhibition Thursday.
