Saturday, May 22, 2010

Walchuk's Stick Heading To Hockey Hall Of Fame:

This was in the Prince George Citizen Newspaper:

RBC winner scored by McBride's Walchuk

21 May 2010

The Prince George Citizen

Ted Clarke Citizen staff

He’s only 17 and already there’s a piece of Dylan Walchuk in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

How many hockey players from McBride have that claim to fame?

It’s the stick Walchuk used to score the game-winning goal for the Vernon Vipers a couple weeks ago at the RBC Royal Bank Cup championship in Dauphin, Man., and it’s destined for a display case at the hallowed hall in Toronto.

“Me and (Patrick) McGillis went on a 2-on-1 and I looked to pass but he wasn’t open so I just took it in and shot and beat (Kings goalie Joe Caligiuri, a former Prince George Cougar) low blocker,” Walchuk said. “I kept the puck and the Hall of Fame took my stick.”

Walchuk’s goal came 6:28 into the second period and the Vipers backed it up with six more goals in an 8-1 rout over the host Kings to wrap up their second straight national championship and a record sixth Canadian junior A title in the history of the franchise.

“It’s pretty amazing,” said Walchuk, from his billet home in Vernon. “Having it all sink in and realizing what you did is pretty cool.”

How Walchuk ended up in Vernon is an example of the extraordinary lengths a B.C. boy is willing to go to pursue a hockey career. He and his family knew early on that staying in tiny McBride (pop. 660) was not an option. As soon as he was old enough to play peewee he was off to Kamloops.

As a tyke and atom playing for McBride he was a fixture in Prince George rinks, but that hockey connection ended when he failed to catch on with a spring hockey team in the city. He did find an alternate spring team in Kamloops which eventually led to a move there, and his statistics from those years on Kamloops rep teams are staggering. He totalled 172 goals and 292 points in 46 games as a second-year peewee. As a secondyear triple-A bantam he had 140 points in 43 games. It seemed wherever he went, even if he was at the bottom of his age group, Walchuk was a game-breaker.
“I kind of liked being the youngest guy, besides doing all the rookie duties,” he said. “If you do good, everybody notices you because you’re a rookie.”

At 16, he made the jump to the Nelson Leafs of Kootenay International Junior (B) Hockey League and that paid off in a big way when Walchuk topped the team scoring list in the playoffs with 10 goals and 16 assists in 16 playoff games. In 65 games that season, playing against 19-and 20-yearolds, he totaled 39 goals and 52 assists for a team-leading 91 points and was the KIJHL rookie of the year. Northern Michigan University took notice and signed the centreman to a full-ride scholarship, which begins in 2011.

“It was a good offer by them and I didn’t want to turn them down, I’m pretty happy about it,” said Walchuk.

Walchuk played six games in the BCHL for Trail as an affiliated player in 2008-09. Trail wanted him back, but the Vipers latched on after seeing him play for the Thompson-Okanagan team at the B.C. Cup. At that under-16 tournament he finished one point behind Brett Connolly for the scoring title.

As a 17-year-old, Walchuk came to powerful Viper team with 13 returning players.

“We were a skilled team and didn’t have much adversity and almost coasted through the regular season,” Walchuk said. “When the playoffs came we seemed to do pretty good and overcame the adversity. The Quesnel series was probably one of the toughest series we played.”

Walchuk is looking forward to his second full BCHL season and returning to Vernon to get his championship ring. It will be the first time he can remember coming back to a team as a veteran.

They told me I’d be one of the top guys next year and a leader,” he said.

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