Prince George Cougars defenceman Dennis Cholowski is among 13 WHL players that have been chosen to attend Canada’s selection camp in St. Catharines, Ontario.
The camp begins Tuesday and will continue until December 15th.
The 19-year-old has 24 points and is +5 in 27 games this season.
He couldn’t be more pleased with the opportunity.
“It’s an extreme honour you know, I’m very happy about and it, one of my main goals coming into this season was to make the camp and then make the big run at the team so I’m very happy about it.”
Hockey Canada held a news conference today in Calgary to announce the 32 players (18 forwards, 10 defencemen and four goalies) that were invited to camp.
BREAKING: @dcholowski27 named to @HockeyCanada selection camp 2018 | #CityofPG #WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/qT15vL4qv5
— My Prince George Now (@mypgnow) December 6, 2017
The Cougars defenceman was one of 10 blueliners named in Calgary on Wednesday.
Cholowski says the jump to major-junior has paid off to this point.
“I’ve put in a lot of work for sure, coming into the WHL I was really looking to be a leader and assert myself on the ice and tried to show Team Canada I had what it takes and so far it has worked so I just gotta keep going.”
With a golden opportunity like this, Cholowski will go into camp with nothing to lose.
“I can’t hold anything back and I just have to go for it and play my game and not worry about making mistakes.”
Seven players return from last year’s silver-medal winning team.
That leaves 16 spots available as Hockey Canada will reduce the roster down to 23 players.
They are goaltender Carter Hart (Everett), defencemen Jake Bean (Calgary), Kale Clague (Brandon) and Dante Fabbro (Boston University) and forwards Dillon Dube (Kelowna), Michael McLeod (Mississauga) and Taylor Raddysh (Erie).
The World Junior Hockey Championship will be held in Buffalo, New York starting Boxing Day and running through January 5th.
PG Cougars winger Vladislav Mikalchuk will play for Belarus at the world junior tournament.
– with files from Jeff Slack and Brendan Pawliw, My PG Now