Ottawa 67s head coach Dave Cameron will again lead Canada into the World Junior Hockey Championship later this month in Ottawa.
When the Ottawa Senators finished up their training camp in early October, there was no shortage of fans who wanted defenseman Carter Yakemchuk to remain with the team. The Senators seemed to think long and hard about the idea as well, keeping the NHL's seventh-overall pick right until the final day of camp before sending him back to the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey League.
The silver lining for Ottawa fans was the assumption they'd get to see Yakemchuk back in Ottawa over the holidays as a member of the World Junior team this month.
But Hockey Canada's U20 head scout, Al Murray, and his management group had other plans. They released their selection camp roster this week, and Yakemchuk's name wasn't among the ten defensemen they chose.
Team Canada's head coach, Dave Cameron, the Sens' head coach during the famous Hamburglar run to the playoffs in 2015, was part of the selection process and said that not everyone in the Hockey Canada management group agreed on every player.
"It's a process," Cameron told TSN 1200 radio this week. "We've got Al Murray, Scotty Walker, Brent Seabrook — lots of guys have seen (the top junior players) play a lot. And it's tough. This is my fifth World Junior, and every year that you pick a team, there are people that disagree with you, which is understandable. One of our strengths is our depth."
Cameron says that because of that depth, if you took 20 knowledgeable hockey people and asked them to pick Team Canada, you'd have 20 different teams. No two teams would be the same. But it's more than just picking the best individuals.
"We're picking a team. A team is more than one dimension. A team has to be able to play a 200-foot game and play different ways."
Cameron was asked specifically about Yakemchuk, and he reminded fans that the talk isn't just limited to Ottawa when it comes to why certain players are not on the team.
"I'm not going to analyze why players are on the team or why they're not. I'm not going into that. (Carter Yakemchuk) is a hell of a hockey player. And he's going to play in the NHL. This team, we're comfortable with the guys we've got. We think we have a team that's going to come in and compete. It's going to have its hands full, but it has an opportunity to win a gold medal right here in Canada."
That will always be the litmus test for Hockey Canada, which is measured Ricky Bobby-style at this tournament: "If you're not first, you're last." If Canada wins a gold medal, all the second-guessing will cease and there will be pats on the back all around. Otherwise, Canada's management group will take the heat for choosing, in some cases, the road less traveled.
As Jerry Seinfeld once said, "Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason."