League went independent last summer, cutting ties with Hockey Canada, who have given out exceptional status title nine times since John Tavares in 2005
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The BCHL has borrowed a page from the Hockey Canada playbook in the latest twist in its feud with the sport’s governing body in this country.
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The BCHL announced last week that it had granted exceptional status to Cowichan Bay forward Eli McKamey and he will play full-time next season as a 15-year-old with the Penticton Vees. It’s the first time the league has allowed that. Players normally can’t be regulars until their 16-year-old campaign.
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Hockey Canada used that exceptional status tag when it started the practice in 2005 with the three Major Junior leagues by agreeing to John Tavares suiting up a season early in the OHL. They have signed off on eight 15 year olds playing full time at that level since, the most recent being Landon DuPont, a defenceman from Calgary set to join the WHL’s Everett Silvertips next fall. Connor McDavid and Connor Bedard are also on that list.
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The BCHL had been the most successful Junior A loop under the Hockey Canada umbrella, and particularly when it came to its players landing NCAA scholarships. The league balked at some of Hockey Canada’s rules, with ones regarding out-of-province recruiting the most notable, and in May announced they were cutting ties from the national body and becoming an independent league.
It came at a cost. They needed to fund their own insurance policy and stable of referees and linesmen. Under longstanding Hockey Canada regulations regarding unsanctioned leagues, any players who suited up in the BCHL after Sept. 30 this season were also ineligible for any Hockey Canada activity for the remainder of the campaign.
McKamey provides them an intriguing test case for the league. If it works well, players will notice and the league has touted the fact it’s interested in talent from out of province. For instance, Penticton announced in April a commitment for next season from Toronto defenceman Zach Nyman, 16, who represented Team Canada at the Winter Youth Olympics last January in South Korea.
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Under Hockey Canada rules, they wouldn’t have been able to add Nyman and they would have needed a special exemption for McKamey at the very least.
“I think its shows where our league is going,” Vees general manager/coach Fred Harbinson said of landing the pair. “It shows that you are getting the legit high-profile young players in the country to look at the BCHL, which is why we did what we did.”
The BCHL is now 21 teams. Five Alberta teams signed on in January, including the then three-time reigning national champion Brooks Bandits. The Merritt Centennials announced in March that they were leaving the league at the end of the season.
In April, the 11-team Vancouver Island Junior B Hockey League announced it was cutting ties with Hockey Canada next fall and would be an affiliate league for the BCHL.
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The Vees are the two-time reigning Fred Page Cup league champions. They’re currently in this year’s best-of-seven Fred Page finale, tied 1-1 with the Surrey Eagles prior to Game 3 Tuesday night in Pentction. Game 4 is Wednesday in Penticton. Game 5 goes Friday in Surrey.
McKamey is listed as a 5-foot-10 and 170 pounder and he had 23 goals and 48 points in 28 games this past season with the Shawnigan Lake School Under-18 Prep team of the Canadian Sport School Hockey League.
McKamey went in the second round, No. 35 overall, to the Victoria Royals in last week’s WHL Draft, but multiple team sources and player agents alike said that he could have gone No. 2 overall if he hadn’t been adamant about his plans to go the NCAA route.
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The BCHL is an older league than the WHL. The BCHL allows six 20 year olds per team, where the WHL has just three. There will be challenges with that, Harbinson admits.
“He’s an elite player in all categories,” Harbinson continued of McKamey. “He’s a kid who can score. He’s a special player who will make an impact on our program right away.
“I love his personality. Being able to play above your age bracket you have to be very mature. When you talk to this kid, he’s very focussed and driven. He’s ahead in school. He’s a very determined young man.”
The BCHL board of governors voted in favour of adding an exceptional player status application process in January. Players apply through the team they wish to commit to, and a selection committee from the league makes a ruling.
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“There was a process to prove that he belongs, and not just hockey wise, to get this kind of opportunity,” Harbinson said.
The BCHL also dealing with the fact that the NCAA is contemplating opening up scholarship opportunities to Major Junior players. That would change the landscape dramatically. There’s been no word of late whether that’s coming anytime soon.
The BCHL lists 285 players from this season with NCAA commitments.
The BCHL pulled out of the Canadian Junior Hockey League, which oversees things like the Centennial Cup national championship on behalf of Hockey Canada, in April 2021. The league produced a 35-page white paper entitled “Modernizing Junior Hockey in Canada — Supporting Two Junior Development Paths for Canadian Athletes,” and published it on the league website in September 2022.
sewen@postmedia.com
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