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It’s comprehensible why Dave Cameron was chosen to be Staff Canada’s head coach on the IIHF world junior championship in December — and it has nothing to do with the comfort of the event being held in his yard.
The 65-year-old bench boss of the 67’s brings a powerful resume in addition to invaluable expertise to the annual showcase of the planet’s greatest under-20 yr outdated hockey gamers that, beginning on Dec. 26, can be held at Ottawa’s TD Place and Canadian Tire Centre.
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In a training profession that has has spanned three many years — from nearly each degree of junior hockey to the AHL and NHL to a few years in Austria — Cameron has additionally walked behind the plank for Canada’s males’s workforce on the world championship in Moscow 5 years in the past, in addition to working with Canada’s Beneath-18 workforce.
This can be his fifth tour with the Beneath-20s and third because the squad’s head coach. Beneath his steerage, Canada received gold on the 2022 world junior and silver in 2011.
Cameron additionally has a gold from his function as an assistant on the 2009 event, the earlier time it was held in Ottawa.
That background will turn out to be useful as Canada tries to bounce again from final yr’s quarterfinals loss in Gothenburg, Sweden.
“It’s a high-end event and also you’re all the time anticipated to win the event, so I suppose there’s some strain that comes with that,” Cameron stated over the telephone from his residence in PEI when requested in regards to the warmth he’ll be below. “However my expertise has taught that yearly, there’s not less than 4 to 5 groups that would win it and we’re going to be a type of 4 or 5, we’re going to a aggressive workforce. Now we have to make use of the truth that it’s in Canada and ensure we play your greatest, however like these different 4 or 5 groups, we’ve bought to discover a strategy to win.
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“It’s distinctive from the standpoint is that it’s elimination video games when you get into the quarterfinals and semifinals, and though there may solely be 4 or 5 that would win the entire thing, there’s no simple video games anymore. Actually not when you find yourself Staff Canada and everyone’s gearing up in your individual nation and trying to knock you off.
“One of many benefits of the expertise of going by way of it’s that you simply’re significantly better ready for the ups and downs of what’s going to occur on this event, the momentum switches and that, and coping with the expectations of the event,” added Cameron, who has coached the 67’s for the previous three seasons and in 2022-23 received the OHL’s Brian Kilrea Coach of the Yr Award with a franchise-record 51 victories. “So there may be expectations and strain, however I really feel fairly snug with my expertise with the workforce that we’ll discover methods to navigate that, for certain.”
Cameron didn’t hesitate together with his response when Hockey Canada requested if he was within the job once more.
“It’s an automated sure,” he stated. “The factor from a training standpoint, in these occasions you get to work with elite athletes, particularly within the U-20s, a best-on-best event. However you additionally get to work with some actually good coaches too.
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“As a lot as you’re there as the top coach, you’re working with hockey educated folks, and so that you your self develop as a coach. When you get into teaching for a time period, it’s like every other job the place you’re in search of methods to refresh stuff, you’re trying to carry on prime of stuff, you’re in search of new drills, you’re in search of new techniques, a tweak right here, a tweak there. In order thrilling as it’s to be working with elite gamers, I discover it actually thrilling to work with elite coaches and to have the ability to develop my very own sport, too.”
On Cameron’s employees can be Orleans native Sylvain Favreau from the QMJHL championship-winning Drummondville Voltigeurs, Portland Winterhawks coach Mike Johnston and Saginaw Spirit head coach Chris Lazary.
Serving as goaltending advisor can be Justin Pogge, a former Toronto Maple Leafs third-round choose and a member of the 2006 Staff Canada squad, whereas former WHL Peter Anholt returns to steer the workforce’s administration group and three-time Stanley Cup champion and Olympic gold medallist Brent Seabrook additionally returns in a administration function.
Cameron isn’t certain if a participant like Mack Celebrini, the primary total choose within the 2024 NHL entry draft, can be accessible to return to Staff Canada or if he’ll be spending the season with the San Jose Sharks.
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He does count on to have not less than six or seven returnees from final yr’s workforce and he’ll lean on them.
“They’re going to be an enormous a part of the management group, and an enormous a part of the management can be serving to you put together the blokes that make the workforce, and the way there’s such a positive line between success and getting knocked of the event,” Cameron stated. “We’ve bought that proper within the dressing room and people guys ought to have the ability to converse to it, and that ought to assist us too.”
Attending the workforce’s summer season camp can be 67’s captain Luca Pinelli, whereas his teammate, Henry Mews, could have an opportunity to be included on the camp in December.
“We’re going to do a summer season camp on the finish of July to the primary of August, and we’re really going to play Sweden and Finland and the US,” Cameron stated. “So that may give me an actual look into to my guys there, who I believe the core guys can be, who the leaders can be. However it is going to be a unbroken analysis course of as a result of there’ll all the time be guys that aren’t on the summer season camp that make your camp at Christmas.
“I imply, that’s simply how fast they develop over 5, six months. There’s an enormous distinction for the youngsters which can be in that 18-19 yr age bracket.
“Now it’s only a matter of men taking part in actual good hockey from September up till December, they usually’lll get invited to the December camp. As soon as we get to the December camp, you’re actually within the combine as a result of we’re most likely solely going to usher in 28-29 guys to that to that camp. So in case you get to that camp, you’re going to be knocking on the door of creating the workforce.”
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