EVERETT — Nicholas Walters is getting a taste of the big time.
The Everett Silvertips prospect has spent the past week with the team, getting his first in-depth look at his future home, as well as his first look at what being a WHL player is all about.
“It’s a real nice area,” Walters said Monday before the team boarded the bus for Kamloops. “It’s my first time being here midseason, seeing how the billets work. All the people I’ve met here are nice, so it’s been good.”
Walters, a 15-year-old defenseman from St. Albert, Alberta, is considered one of the franchise’s future building blocks. He was Everett’s first pick in the 2009 bantam draft, being selected eighth overall, and the Tips have already secured his future services by inking him to a WHL education contract.
The tall and trim stay-at-home blueliner arrived in Everett on New Year’s Eve and will remain with the Tips through their road trip to Kamloops and Kelowna. He isn’t expected to see any game action during his time with the Tips, but he’s participating in practices and gaining valuable insight on what to expect once he joins the WHL in full.
“It’s a good experience,” Walters said. “It’s showing me where I need to be for next year. I’m going to have to get bigger and a little bit faster, but it’s been good so far.”
This season Walters is playing for his hometown St. Albert Raiders in the Alberta Midget Hockey League, the top league for players aged 15-17 in the province. His team is 17-4-5, which leads the league in points, and the Raiders have the league’s second-stingiest defense, having surrendered just 56 goals in 26 games. St. Albert had a recent rough patch, culminating in a quick exit from the prestigious Mac’s Midget Tournament in Calgary during the holidays. But Walters said the team has since righted the ship.
Meanwhile, Walters said his game has picked up as the season has progressed.
“I started just slightly slow,” Walters explained. “Coming back from Everett (after training camp) I was maybe a little bit cocky, I guess that happens. But the last three months have been real good. I’ve been playing some of the best hockey I’ve played in a long time, I’ve put on five pounds, so it seems to be going good for me.”
Walters’ biggest achievement of the season came at the inaugural Western Canada U-16 Challenge Cup. The Challenge Cup featured 15-year-old all-star teams from each of Canada’s four western provinces in a round-robin tournament in late October. Walters helped Alberta capture the gold medal.
“For me, I’ve never won anything bigger than that,” said Walters, who was employed as a shut-down defenseman and primary penalty killer for Alberta. “So it kind of felt like winning the gold medal for Canada or something like that.”
After Wednesday’s game at Kelowna Walters will head home to finish out his season with St. Albert. He hasn’t yet been given any assignments by the Tips on which parts of his game to work on, but he’s pretty sure what he’ll hear before departing.
“I just think they’ll tell me to get a little bit bigger, faster and stronger and go from there,” Walters said.
If that happens, expect to see Walters in an Everett jersey next season.
Tonight’s start pushed back
The start time for tonight’s game at Kamloops has been pushed back one hour to 8 p.m. The delay is to accommodate the gold-medal game between the U.S. and Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championships, which takes place at 5 p.m. in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Moving the start back an hour allows the Kamloops fans to watch the game, which is national news in Canada, and still see the Blazers game in its entirety.
Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog: http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog.
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