Of course that was only the first year so you’ll have to excuse me for thinking we haven’t seen anything yet.
His first chance to play internationally in his you hockey career, Dawes loved his first taste of playing for his country but admitted it was a little nerve-wracking at first. “I think a little bit,” said Dawes said of the pressure that comes with donning the Maple Leaf. “It seems like everyone is out to get you and there’s all these distractions to try and get you off your game and a bunch of adversity you have to battle through but I think most of the guys just cherish the moment. The first time you make the national team and you’re playing for your country, it’s a great experience and they were a great group of guys that I played with. It couldn’t have been much better.”
The Winnipeg native excelled on a line with Nate Horton and Cory Perry of the Oshawa Generals and the Peterborough Petes of the OHL, respectively. For the diminutive center whose game thrives on speed and the ability to make opponents miss, the big ice surface of the European rink wasn’t too hard to get used to. “It was good, there was a lot of room out there, especially on the power-plays,” said Dawes. “There’s a lot more room to set up and manoeuver a lot easier without being checked. It’s definitely a different game (there’s) little more finesse and its not as physical except for with us, Canadians always play physical. The reffing was a little different, we had to get used to that but overall it was a great experience.”
“I guess I liked it, I’m not going to really complain about it but I don’t really mind the North American size either. You’ve got to do a little more skating on the European size.”
The tournament, for players born in 1985, has grown from four to eight nations competing over the past five years and has matured into a topnotch tournament to which NHL scouts gravitate. The dominance of the Canadians however, outscoring their opponents this year by a 35-11 margin, can’t help but jump out at you. Despite the skewed scores, the 6-5 victory over the Swiss being the closest, Dawes said the competition is closer than the scores indicate. “We didn’t play our best game and they (the Swiss) came flying at us,” said Dawes. “It was a tough game but I don’t think we were playing our best, if we had I don’t think it would’ve been as close as it was. I’d guess that the Russians were the toughest team but all the games didn’t seem like blowouts. The scores were high but they were closer than the scores made them look. They were still close at some point in the games before we took off. Even our first two games even though they were lopsided, they were all intense games.”
“They (the games) weren’t as difficult as the games in the Under-17 but we had such a good team compared to some of the others, I guess.”
Dawes, who at seventeen has followed in the golden footsteps of Kootenay ICE alumni at the Under-18 tournament of Steve McCarthy, Kyle Wanvig, Jarret Stoll, Dan Blackburn and Andy Thompson during the WHL club’s four- year tenure in Cranbrook, has some big shoes to fill. Of course Dawes won’t do it alone but he will draw the expectations of the aforementioned players now that he’s joined their ranks when they were his age. “I don’t think so, maybe a little bit, but I don’t really look at it that way,” said Dawes of the added expectation to perform at a higher level this season “There’s 22 guys that are going to help me do that so everyone will have their role and everyone will play their role without trying to do too much or not doing enough. You have to work together as a team to get where we got last year. Obviously I’m just one piece of the puzzle and there’s a bunch of other guys that are going to fill in their jobs if we’re going to be successful.”
Quick Hits – Kootenay’s training camp begins Thursday night at the Rec./Plex where the players, broken into two squads, will be put through the paces by new head coach Cory Clouston and newly arrived assistant Brad Lauer . . . Camp will go all Labor-Day weekend long before breaking with the club’s annual Blue-White Intra squad game Monday at the ‘Plex . . . One of the biggest question marks before training camp will be whether or not departed defenseman Andy Thompson will report to camp. Thompson left the club after the second round playoff victory over the Seattle Thunderbirds for family reasons and didn’t return.
