With Hockey Canada unveiling their training camp roster for the 2026 World Juniors, Canadian hockey fans around the country let out a resounding sigh of relief when a couple of former OHL all-stars and award winners were seen on the roster.
At the 2025 World Juniors, Canada lost to Czechia 4-3 in the quarterfinals. Their offense all tournament long was far below average from what we are used to seeing. Usually, they can pounce on some of the “lesser” nations, but they lost 3-2 in a shootout to Latvia at last year’s event — triumph for the Latvians, embarrassment for the Canadians.
Their roster configuration was met with a lot of skepticism as soon as it was released, leaving off a ton of high-end talent. That appeared to bite them in the rear. But Hockey Canada doesn’t appear to be making that mistake this time around.
Two of those high-end, talented players who weren’t on the roster last year were teammates with the Saginaw Spirit in the OHL. Defenseman Zayne Parekh and Michael Misa, having been left off the roster, had a lot of fans and analysts questioning what Hockey Canada was doing. After a fifth-place tournament finish, those same fans and analysts blasted them.
Last year, Canada announced their selection camp roster on Dec. 2. Parekh and Misa were not on the list. Parekh was brought into camp a few days later, however.
At the time, Misa was tearing up the OHL and had scored 25 goals and 49 points in just 25 games. Sure, he was a 2007-born and Canada has notoriously avoided bringing younger players to the tournament unless they are exceptional (John Tavares, Connor McDavid, Connor Bedard, Gavin McKenna), but his offensive dominance deserved at least an invite to the camp.
Parekh wasn’t slouching around either. Fresh off winning the OHL’s Defenseman of the Year award for the 2023-24 season, the Calgary Flames prospect had eight goals and 30 points in 22 games. Like Misa, Parekh’s offensive talent was far too good to pass up on for Canada. Yet they did.
Misa would go on to finish the season with 62 goals and 134 points in 65 games. He was the CHL’s top scorer (across the OHL, WHL, and QMJHL), he won the Scholastic Player of the Year, and he was voted the Most Outstanding Player in the OHL. San Jose had no problem selecting him second overall in the 2025 NHL Draft.
Both Misa and Parekh have started the season in the NHL with their respective teams (Misa with San Jose and Parekh with Calgary). Hockey Canada wasn’t going to deny them an invite this time around, but they had to hope that both the Sharks and Flames would loan their star young prospects to them for the upcoming tournament.
Now that both have an opportunity to represent their country on the big stage, expect them to lead the charge offensively and play with a bit of extra motivation after their roster snub from last year.
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