Red Deer will play host to a pair of World Junior Hockey Championship exhibition games next month.
And the pre-tournament contests — leading into the IIHF WJC Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in Calgary and Edmonton — will be anything but run-of-the-mill exhibitions, Al Coates, executive director of the 2012 event insisted Wednesday during a Hockey Canada press conference at the Centrium.
When Team Russia takes on Team USA Dec. 20 and Team Canada hooks up with Team Switzerland two nights later, there will be plenty on the line, Coates stressed.
Coates based his theory on past world junior tournaments, including the 2005 event in North Dakota which featured the international emergence of current Anaheim Ducks star sniper Corey Perry.
Perry, as Coates noted, earned a spot on the Canadian team with his two-goal, solid two-way performance in the final pre-tournament game at Saskatoon. Canada’s 13th forward when the championship started, Perry moved up the depth chart when one of the Canadian players was injured, and while playing on the first line with Sidney Crosby and Patrice Bergeron helped lead Canada to a gold-medal triumph.
“For the reigning MVP of the NHL, that’s just one of those really good stories in regards to the world juniors (and the importance of pre-tournament games),” said Coates.
“There are no slam-dunk games leading into the tournament. There’s an opportunity for somebody to step up and move up in the lineup, maybe from a seventh defenceman to a fifth defenceman, or a fourth-line forward to a second-line forward. And for the coaches of these teams, the pre-competition games are opportunities to get the chemistry going and to see who’s going to click with who before the tournament actually starts.”
The Russia-United States contest will feature two of the perennial WJC favourites and Coates predicted that the Canada-Switzerland game will also be highly competitive.
“Looking at the NHL rosters the last few years, a lot of players are coming out of Switzerland,” said Coates. “None of these teams or games can be taken for granted. If you’re running one of these teams you want to be successful during the pre-competition, you want to be going into the tournament feeling good about yourself.”
Coates attended numerous world junior championships as an NHL executive — he was the Calgary Flames GM from 1995 to 2000 and later served in various management roles with Anaheim and Toronto — but never realized the true significance of the WJC before taking on his current job.
“I just think it’s really exciting. When I got involved with this a little over a year ago I had no idea, to be honest, of the magnitude of this event,” he said. “Working with it now every single day I can see the passion. We all know that this is Canada’s game and people are crazy about it, but there’s something about the world juniors and Christmas and family. Essentially, things shut down for this event.”
The 2012 WJC will set an attendance record, a fact that was verified when all available tickets packages were purchased last January.
“We had 186,000 people who registered to buy ticket packages, not just individual game tickets,” said Coates. “That just shows once again the enthusiasm, excitement and passion there is for world junior hockey in the country and most certainly here in this province.”
All along, Red Deer — the host of the 1995 WJC — was a natural as the site of one or more pre-tournament games, said Coates. Other exhibition games will be played in Olds, Three Hills, Brooks, Calgary, Camrose, Edmonton, Lethbridge and Okotoks.
“A lot went into the selection process,” he said. “There were other cities and centres and organizations that wanted to get games and applied to Hockey Canada to do that.
“But the track record of the city of Red Deer and certainly the Rebels organization speaks for itself. There’s a great history here dating back to Red Deer hosting the world juniors for the first time in this province. Now, 17 years later, we bring it right back here. If anyone is deserving it’s most certainly the city of Red Deer and the organizing committee from ‘95 who deserve to have some kind of reunion here.
“That was part and parcel of the decision, but we also know that this building will be sold out for these two games. It’s part of our business plan and we’re just really happy to be able to bring the excitement of world junior hockey to Red Deer.”
The Rebels were involved with the bid to bring the pre-tournament games to the Centrium and GM/head coach Jesse Wallin called Wednesday’s announcement “an exciting time.”
Added Wallin, a two-time member of the Canadian national junior team: “These are important games and they’re going to be intense. The calibre of play and players in this event is at a very elite level and there’s going to be some exceptional hockey.”
Wallin won a gold medal with Canada in 1997 in Switzerland and was captain of the squad that finished eighth the following year in Finland.
“If I had a regret it’s that I didn’t get to play (in the WJC) here in Canada,” he said. “For the players to come in here and experience our building . . . the Centrium is a first-class facility and our fans can get real loud and it can be a real intense place to play, so I think our Canadian players are in for a real neat experience in Red Deer.”
• Rebels season-ticker holders will have first option on seats for the two games at the Centrium at a package price of $60 plus TicketMaster surcharge.
Tickets will be available to the general public on Nov. 28 at a package price of $70 plus surcharge.
• Sweden and Denmark will tangle Dec. 20 at Olds and Three Hills will host a United States-Slovakia pre-tournament game Dec. 23.
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com