PDA

View Full Version : Blue Chip leader...



Triton
09-14-2005, 08:22 PM
Brent Sutter’s search for leaders of Canada’s National Junior Team will almost certainly include Prince Albert Raiders veteran forward, Kyle Chipchura. Leadership is an area that figures to be of huge significance for Team Canada this year, given the youthfulness and inexperience of those who will likely wear the Maple Leaf at the 2006 World Junior Championship.

There was no shortage of leadership last season, Sutter’s first at the helm of the National Junior Team. Canada cruised to victory with a lineup that was clearly more talented than any other country’s, but the leadership of captain Mike Richards and other players such as Dion Phaneuf, Patrice Bergeron, Colin Fraser, Shea Weber and Jeff Carter were essential elements of the triumphant march to gold.

Who is going to be in that leadership group this year? That’s a difficult question to answer given the uncertainty about who is even going to make the team. Defenceman Cam Barker’s status as the only returning player – if in fact he’s available – would likely put him in a leadership role.

Chipchura, a 19-year-old, three-year veteran of the Western Hockey League, would also have to be near the top of any list of likely candidates to wear a ‘C’ or ‘A’.

The 6-foot-3, 195-pound native of tiny Vimy, Alta., is big, strong, mature, hard working and respected by teammates and opponents. He’s capable of playing a variety of roles, as either a top-line winger or a checking line centre. He’s unselfish. He’s hungry for a spot on the team and the chance to contribute on the big stage of international competition.

Perhaps most importantly, the Raiders’ veteran has a fan club that includes Sutter, the general manager/head coach of the Red Deer Rebels, who has seen Chipchura develop from Bantam superstar to a reliable team player in the WHL.

“He has tremendously strong character, a great leadership-type player,” Sutter told The Globe & Mail. “You need players like that on your hockey team, especially going into a situation where you lack experience at this level.”

But for an untimely injury, Chipchura might be in the same boat as Barker – a returning veteran player with a WJC gold medal already tucked away in his trophy case.

A first-round Entry Draft selection (18th overall) in June 2004 by the Montreal Canadiens, he made a positive impression at the 2004 Summer Development Camp and had a great start to the 2004-05 WHL regular season. He ended November with 14 goals and 32 points in 28 games.

As it turned out, Chipchura didn’t play another WHL regular season game. On Dec. 3, at practice, a teammate’s skate severed the Achilles tendon in his right leg. The injury came just a few days before Hockey Canada was to announce the Selection Camp roster for the National Junior Team.

Chipchura was expected to miss the rest of the season but made it back March 30, in time to join the Raiders’ surprising playoff run: a four-game sweep of favoured Saskatoon, a series win over favoured Medicine Hat, and going to Game 7 against favoured Brandon. Chipchura made his return in Game 4 vs. Saskatoon and had 11 points in 14 playoff games, answering any doubts about his ability to come back from a possible career-ending injury.

“At the time I didn’t know if I would be out for two weeks, four months or my whole life,” said Chipchura. “You hear a lot of stuff about guys who come back and they’re not back to full strength for their whole career after a major injury.

“It crossed my mind but to sit there and mope wasn’t going to get me anywhere.”

Instead, his recovery resulted in him returning to this year’s Summer Development Camp at full speed. He had a strong performance in Game 1 of the intrasquad series for Team Red, giving a hint of the leadership and maturity he could bring to Team Canada.

He’s certainly ready for that step into an important role. He’s played with and against the top players at every stage, including winning gold at the 2003 Canada Winter Games and playing for Team Canada at the Under 18 World Championship. Chipchura was the No. 1 overall pick of the 2001 WHL Bantam Draft and spent his first three years in Prince Albert learning from Jeremy Colliton, a gritty but injured member of last year’s National Junior Team.

“He’s the guy I’ve learned the most from,” said Chipchura, recalling other influential players in his past such as Kevin Du, while playing Bantam in Spruce Grove, and Mitch McGillivray during his Midget season in Fort Saskatchewan. “Being around (Colliton) the past three years, I’ve seen how much his teammates respect him.

“He’s a guy you really look up to and who helps you along the way. Totally unselfish, a solid team guy. Probably the most professional-like player I’ve played with.”

Like most players who have progressed through Minor Hockey and junior at the head of their age group, Chipchura is extremely demanding on himself – sometimes too much. But he knows the score for Team Canada’s underdog team this year and he’s fully prepared for the leadership role that he should play. “This is a dream for all the kids,” he said during a break at Summer Development Camp in Whistler, B.C. “You come here and bring what you have. You don’t try to be someone you’re not.

“I’d like to think of myself as maybe a leader on the team. I’d like to be counted on as a guy who can help pull a team together. I like being looked at that way and it think it says a lot about myself off the ice as well. “I know that I’m maybe viewed that way . . . and when there is that perception, you want to carry it on.” Asked about the pressure that will face Team Canada on its home turf this year, Chipchura lights up. He’s not a bit shy about accepting the challenge facing an inexperienced Team Canada lineup.

“I think the pressure will be a pretty fun part of it though,” he says. “For the guys that are there, it’s going to be one heck of an experience and everyone wants to be a part of it. If you can’t take the pressure, then maybe you shouldn’t be at the tournament.”