Five Abbotsford hockey products have been invited to battle for a spot on the Team B.C. U16 provincial team.
Locals Joel Jordan, Brayden Schuurman, Grayden Siepmann, Tyson Dyck and Brayden Edwards are part of the 60 players selected for the camp, which runs from July 29 to Aug. 3 in Shawnigan Lake.
Jordan, Schuurman, Siepmann and Edwards all spent last season with the Yale Hockey Academy, while Dyck played with the Burnaby Winter Club program.
Players are split into three different teams at the camp, with Jordan and Schuurman both on the grey squad, and Siepmann Dyck and Edwards on the white team. Siepmann and Jordan are both defenders, while Schuurman, Dyck and Edwards are forwards.
Also heading to Shawnigan Lake is Abbotsford Minor Hockey Association product Ben Thornton. The forward, who spent last season with YHA and many previous seasons with the AMHA, will also be on the grey squad. Thornton and his family recently moved to Agassiz.
The camp will include on- and off-ice activities, introducing the Program of Excellence (POE) athletes to the most up-to-date information and concepts as they relate to both national and international levels of hockey.
Athletes will take advantage of the facilities on the Shawnigan Lake School campus, including an arena built in 2014 that has been used by the Vancouver Canucks for their rookie camp.
The players were invited to attend the camp based on their performance at the U16 BC Cup that was held in Salmon Arm in April.
Team BC is the defending champion of the Western Hockey League (WHL) Cup, which features male U16 teams from Alberta, B.C., Manitoba and Saskatchewan and is held in non-Canada Winter Games years.
The BC Hockey Male POE was introduced in 1980 with the mandate to systematically identify and train the province’s elite-level players for high-performance hockey events.
The overall objective of the program is to increase the chances of athletes from B.C. to compete provincially, regionally, nationally and internationally with the ultimate goal being selected to Hockey Canada’s national junior or national senior team.
For more on the team, visit bchockey.net.
