Texas native Kade O'Rourke looked ready to enter the OHL one year early. The Toronto Jr. Canadians player was a great candidate for exceptional status, but he was denied. Ryan Kennedy looks at the "puzzling" decision and what comes next.
The prospect world got a shock Tuesday when defenseman Kade O'Rourke of the Toronto Jr. Canadiens was denied an exceptional status designation by Hockey Canada.
The 15-year-old from Texas was assumed to be a great candidate to enter the OHL a year early, but apparently, the committee in charge of the evaluation disagreed.
I'm a little puzzled.
There haven't been any rumblings about the kid's off-ice character or habits, so the stumbling block likely came from the on-ice evaluation.
If that is indeed the case, where did O'Rourke fall short? He was a tournament all-star at the recent OHL Cup, where he helped his JRC squad to the final, losing to an excellent Detroit Honeybaked team. O'Rourke had 10 points in seven games overall, tying him for second among blueliners in the tourney with Honeybaked's Max Lappan, just one behind Ryan Beaulieu of the London Jr. Knights.
Apparently, the committee didn't believe he was "dynamic" enough. I'm not sure that washes, however.
One OHL GM described him as a better version of Brandt Clarke, who, as we all know, had himself a pretty special junior career before joining the Los Angeles Kings.
When I asked the GM a few months ago if O'Rourke was good enough to get exceptional status, the answer was unequivocal: "One-hundred percent."
Since the exceptional status process is clouded in mystery, we can only glean so much.
Let's hope the reasoning had nothing to do with the fact O'Rourke is American and therefore of no future use to Hockey Canada on the international stage.
I saw O'Rourke play live a few times this season, including in the OHL Cup final. He was one of JRC's most active defensemen, and I found myself forgetting he was a year younger than his teammates.
A big part of the exceptional status process is gauging whether the player would be ready for the jump to the OHL, and based on how he thrived with JRC, I don't think it would have been a problem. Already 6-foot-1 and 174 pounds, O'Rourke also has enough size to be at home against older competition.
As for the lifestyle, the kid was used to driving hours for games back in Texas and moved to another country to pursue his hockey dream, so I think he would have been OK.
What Happens Next?
As of now, it sounds like O'Rourke will be back in the GTHL next season, where he will undoubtedly romp and put up big offensive numbers. And while he'll clearly be a top prospect for the OHL draft, he will also have USHL teams banging down his door to join them, most likely through the tendering process that league has (players are signed by a team that gives up its first- or second-round draft choice in the process).
While the USHL has taken a hit recently due to the new NCAA-CHL landscape, there are still some top-end programs there, and O'Rourke would basically have his pick of where he wants to go. He could also try out for USA Hockey's National Team Development Program, which would take him completely off the OHL radar if he did two years with 'The Program' before heading to the NCAA.
It's very curious to me that O'Rourke was spurned by Hockey Canada. This year's OHL draft class isn't seen as being incredibly strong to begin with, and even if he hadn't been taken first overall, he wasn't going to fall as Sean Day did.
We won't know the ramifications of this decision for a couple of years, but if the OHL loses a star player over this, they know who to blame.
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