For the first time ever, a North York Rangers midget club will battle for the Telus Cup - the National Midget championship - starting Apr. 18 in Quispamsis, N.B.
When I saw the club's roster coming together early in the Greater Toronto Hockey League season, I do remember saying to myself...if this team does not AT LEAST make the final of the league, then something has gone horribly wrong. It was loaded to start, it got more loaded as time went on, and the fact that head coach Rob Vessio's men lost only four times in a 33 game schedule, while still impressive, is not a huge surprise to me.
Note: As with any preview, I don't purposely omit anyone, I simply go with what I feel I need to point out without boring a neutral party.
Great teams almost always start with goaltending, and in Jett Alexander and Kyle Henderson, NYR has two good ones. Jett, a 1999 birth year, shone last year on a North York minor midget team that really struggled, and earned himself a 12th-round draft pick from the Mississauga Steelheads of the Ontario Hockey League. He is built to be a goaltender, with a strong 6-foot-4 frame, has good athleticism, and was absolutely sensational in one of his two call-ups with the North York Junior 'A' team (when he was called into duty in Wellington against the Dukes - an extremely hard place to play) .
The older Henderson, a 1998 birth year, has not been fazed either, solidly platooning with Alexander, and I can tell you that Coach Vessio has been nothing but pleased with the work ethic and attitude of the young man that came in after ripping up the minor hockey system in Washington, D.C. I expect Vessio will continue that back-and-forth system between the two at the Telus Cup, and not out of a classic 'it's minor hockey so everyone gets a turn'-type place, but out of a legitimate belief that both guys can get the job done.
The back end is very solid, and while it isn't overly physical, the hockey IQ is huge. There are three guys specifically that I personally know very well, in Jeremy Smith, Liam Gillanders, and Mark Perone; but to a man, all six guys on the corps could easily be top pairing D-men in the GTHL this year.
If there was a GTHL midget video game, I really do maintain that Jeremy Smith would have the highest overall rating. The former Don Mills Flyers minor midget and Upper Canada College player has skill, speed, and vision that is absolutely through the roof - a fact that earned him a spot in an All-Canadians prospect game a couple years ago with legitimate NHL prospects like Mikey McLeod, Tyler Benson, Sam Steel, Victor Mete, and others. Injuries might have derailed his more direct path to notoriety, but he was probably the North York junior team's best defenceman in the one game he played with them this year (at tiny St. Mike's Arena no less, a tough place for the best of D-men to shine). He is a joy to watch, let me tell you.
Liam Gillanders, and Mark Perone are both guys with good size, excellent IQ, and very very low panic thresholds. Perone absolutely loves to compete against anyone, and does not care who you are, how big you are, and what the score is. Gillanders is the smoother puck mover of the two, and both could easily play Junior 'A' hockey right now, in my opinion (at least).
Having the depth of a full six-man, all-midget defence-corps is huge, especially as the Rangers are about take on teams with full, junior-sized rosters from the west at the Telus. Even more importantly, Vessio trusts them all.
Up front, the dynamic duo of Willy Calverley and Aidan Casey were rarely stoppable this season, and were literally unstoppable through the OHF tournament to the tune of 18 goals and 29 combined points in seven games.
Calverley was the leader of a tremendous North York 1998's minor midget team that impressed en route to a plucky performance at the OHL Cup two years ago under a great coach in Lorne Hunchuk. His elite-level passing and patience was a big reason that current North Bay Battalion forward Daniil Vertiy was taken as high as the second round by the OHL's Windsor Spitfires (with no disrespect at all intended to Vertiy, who is a tremendous player and is doing very well for former North York Junior 'A' coach John Dean up in North Bay!). Willy has been everything Vessio has hoped for and more this year, and to top that off was very good in a couple appearances for the junior club.
Casey was, without a doubt, the best puck wizard in the GTHL this year, and has all sorts of junior-ready skill with the disc on his stick. He has a slight build, and I'm sure the western coaches that do their homework will be looking to hit him, but good luck with that: he's also very very slippery. He had 14 points in six games at the All-Ontarios, and generally looked like he found the GTHL pretty easy this year, so he is a lot of fun to watch.
After those two guys, the Rangers midgets take a turn towards the more classic NYR midget teams: a bunch of big, angry belligerents. This team will not be intimidated as other Toronto-area teams might have been against teams from the west and pacific in the past, with hard-working, physical guys like Will Hunter, Jason Pineo, and Daniel Tsiampas in tow.
James Turner's north-south, hard-working style earned him a look at the OHL's Guelph Storm's training camp this past season, while Pineo and Tsiampas have solid, effective, and extensive junior experience already.
It's hard to miss the hulking presence of Matteo Santia as well, as the big man is not very fast, but gets to his spots, and does not mind parking in the goalies face - exactly where Vessio wants him.
Finally, Vessio has found a way to hold on to a midget club that has 11 forwards, and six defencemen, so while other GTHL clubs heading to the Telus Cup have had to call up minor midgets to help fill a roster usually smaller in number than their adversaries on a national level, North York does not need to do that. The benefits to chemistry, and importance of the attitude that "we are all we have, and we are all we need", as a result of not needing to add extra players at this point, cannot be measured. With all those factors in mind, I believe this Ranger club will absolutely be competitive at the national level. Now, like with the rest of this dream season for the North York midgets, what you have on paper means almost nothing when the puck is dropped, so it's time for the lads to show what they are truly made of.
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