USA Hockey announced its rosters for its 2019 World Junior Summer Showcase event and the 44-player list included Everett Silvertips goaltender Dustin Wolf, one of four netminders to be included.
Wolf’s inclusion shouldn’t provide much of a shock. The Calgary Flames draft pick competed for Team USA at the under-18 Hlinka-Gretzky championships and was a part of USA Hockey’s newly minted goaltending development camp this summer.
“Yeah, it’s pretty nice,” Wolf said. “Obviously it’s just the first step and hopefully come December I’ll be trekking out to the Czech Republic and obviously I got a taste of it last summer in Red Deer and Edmonton. It’s just awesome for people to realize they want you to play for their country.”
Wolf, 18, is coming off a tremendous campaign for the Silvertips, in which the Tustin, California, native led the Western Hockey League with a 1.69 goals-against average and a .936 save percentage over 61 regular-season starts. Calgary selected him in the seventh round of the 2019 draft after his first season as Everett’s full-time starter after backing up Carter Hart in 2018-2019.
The Flames prospect will presumably fight for the backup job with Boston College’s Spencer Knight, who was a first-round pick (13th overall) by the Florida Panthers in the 2019 NHL draft, a member and contributor for the 2019 U.S. World Junior team and a heavy favorite to handle the duties between the pipes in 2020.
The summer showcase is USA Hockey’s first phase in the selection process of its team for the 2020 International Ice Hockey Under-20 World Championships, which takes place from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in the Czech Republic. The showcase will take place in Plymouth, Michigan, from July 26 to Aug. 3 and the U.S. teams will face teams from Canada, Finland and Sweden. Wolf will compete with Team White, coached by Ohio State’s Steve Miller.
U-16 provincial camps underway
Under-16 provincial camps, which assist in the selection for the WHL Cup, and four recent Silvertips draft picks in 2019 are participating: Forward Ben Hemmerling (third round) and goalie Ian Mills (seventh round) for Alberta, forward Austin Roest (third round) and goalie Evan May (11th round) for B.C. and defenseman Dexter Whittle (seventh round) and forward Ryder Ringor (12th round) for Manitoba.
The WHL cup is an annual four-team event from Oct. 18 to Oct. 22 between B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
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