With the best goaltender on the planet having his roots embedded in the Williams Lake Minor Hockey Association, there’s no dream too big for lakecity youth.
But Montreal Canadiens goaltender and Olympic gold medalist Carey Price wasn’t always considered the greatest in the world.
In fact, his former bantam and midget rep coach, Sid Davis, recalls a time when Price was cut from not one, but two teams, in the same year.
Davis said it was Price’s first year playing midget hockey. He’d been drafted the previous year as a bantam by the Western Hockey League’s Tri-City Americans and was hoping to play in the B.C. Hockey League for the Quesnel Millionaires.
“They cut him, if you can believe it,” Davis said. “So he came back to Williams Lake. We had our own [junior A] team, the Timberwolves, and they weren’t really interested. They [Quesnel] had three goalies right up until Halloween and he wasn’t getting the ice time he was promised so he ended up coming home and was practicing with us, the midget AAA team, and with the Timberwolves but they weren’t going to commit to him because they already had two goalies.”
Stuck between two teams looking for a spot, Price decided to play with the Williams Lake Midget AAA Timberwolves who, ultimately, went on to win the 2003 Midget AAA Provincial Championship with Price at the helm.
“We beat Quesnel in the playoffs, then we beat Prince George and, at that time, I had been running two goalies back and forth,” Davis said. “He hadn’t been playing all that much and, I think he was a little bit disappointed when he got cut from Quesnel so he wasn’t playing great. Good, but not outstanding.”
That all changed at provincials, Davis noted.
“When we went to provincials he stood on his head,” he said. “What you see today is what you saw at the midget level in provincials.”
During Price’s two years in the WLMHA bantam division — when Price and his dad, Jerry decided to move to Williams Lake from Anahim Lake to avoid Jerry flying him back and forth to practice — Davis said he saw the potential and, the attitude, of a kid who wanted to succeed.
“He was always a bigger kid and, obviously, had some skill,” Davis said.
“Everyone knew he was good but, I would say it was probably his second year bantam, his draft year, where he really took off to another level as a goalie. He was pretty sought after by scouts that entire year pretty much everywhere we went.
“He was just a big, great kid who worked hard and really respected his teammates.”
Davis recalled being at a tournament where one group had to sleep three to a hotel room. Price was the first guy to volunteer to sleep on the cot.
“For the people who know him, even though he’s played in the NHL now, he’s still down to earth,” Davis said.
As for what Price, now 29, has accomplished in the sport, Davis said no one could have predicted this much success back in the day, along with how he has conducted himself as a professional, pointing to his efforts as the ambassador of the Breakfast Club of Canada and his work with the breakfast programs at Marie Sharpe elementary and Anahim Lake Elemenatary/Junior secondary, and his hockey equipment donations to the WLMHA.
“To be the best in the world, I don’t think we ever thought that,” Davis said.
“The NHL is very, very tough to get into. You need the breaks, too, the people who believe in you at the same time and, you need to continue to work on your craft, your skill, and Carey has done that.
“My son and I were at a tournament in Edmonton two years ago and he let the team come watch the practice. We watched, and he wasn’t starting that night but, he was the last guy on the ice working his butt off.
“We just looked at each other and said: ‘There’s the best goalie in the world.’”
