Alex Newhook and Brett Budgell of St. John’s and Dawson Mercer of Bay Roberts, all forwards who played outside Newfoundland last season, are among 111 players who players will assemble in Calgary for the U17 camp.
It will be used to help identify players for three Canadians entries — White, Red and Black — in the tournament that will be held in the northern British Columbia communities of Dawson Creek and Fort St. John in November.
Teams from the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States will also take part.
Newhook, Budgell and Mercer were all taken in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s entry draft earlier this month.
Mercer, who played at Bishop’s College prep school in 2016-17, went in the first round, eighth overall to Drummondville; Budgell, who played with the London Knights AAA midget team, was a second-round pick by the Charlottetown Islanders; and Newhook, who was with the York Simcoe Express midget club in Ontario, was a third-round pick by the Halifax Mooseheads, although he would have been a first-round selection had it not been for what seen as his firm commitment to play for Boston College beginning in 2018.
Grand Falls-Windsor native Brian Casey, an assistant coach with the St. Francis Xavier University X-Men, will be a guest coach at the U17 development camp.
Meanwhile, Mount Pearl native Brian Cheeseman will be back with the next Canadian world junior hockey team as the physiotherapist. Cheeseman, a member of the training staff of the Western Hockey League’s Edmonton Oil Kings, was with Team Canada at the last two world junior events.
The summer development-camp rosters of the national junior and under-18 teams were also announced Tuesday.
sports@thetelegram.com
