Minor hockey players get to meet 3 Winnipeg Jets pros at mega tournament
Annual 2-week event features 180 teams, about 2,600 young hockey players
The power of sport teaches kids lifelong skills and helps them craft friendships on and off the ice — benefits a former minor hockey player hopes will be impressed on participants of this year's Winnipeg Jets Challenge Cup.
Young athletes from across Manitoba, parts of Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario, and as far away as Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, descended on the hockey for all centre for one of the biggest minor hockey tournaments in the country.
The annual event features 180 teams and an estimated 2,600 players, with more than 60,000 visitors expected during the two-week tournament, which wraps up Jan. 2.
"It's exciting to bring people together in connection of sport, especially around the holidays. Everyone likes that feeling of being together and kind of sharing something that we all love and enjoy," said hockey for all centre general manager David Sattler.
A trio of Winnipeg Jets players — defenceman Dylan DeMelo and forwards Mark Scheifele and Morgan Barron — paid a visit Friday to the to the multi-rink facility, located just west of the Perimeter Highway.
Members of a St. James Canucks under-13 team had the opportunity to meet the trio prior to their tournament opener.
Leif Rempel, one of the team's goalies, got all three NHL players to sign his glove. He said the chance to play in the tournament is a blast.
"It's really fun. It feels like a community of hockey, playing just a bunch of games," he said.
One of Rempel's teammates had DeMelo sign his right skate, and wants his skates to become a keepsake once he outgrows them. He said he's sure to have "bragging rights to my friends" after sharing his encounter with the Jets when he returns to school in January.
Experiences like this are what Sattler hopes resonates with Challenge Cup participants.
"These kids look up to those players. Some of them will be their hero. That one moment, you never know what spark it'll give. Maybe a kid was thinking about not continuing in hockey or maybe hadn't loved it as much, and this could be that one thing that changed that," he said.
Like thousands of Canadian adults, Sattler played hockey in his youth. He says the things he learned from playing the sport were invaluable growing up and hopes the next generation of players at the Challenge Cup feel the same way.
"The resilience and camaraderie that goes on in sportsmanship are lifelong lessons and it's a huge testament to everything that goes on in sport," he said.
Jets hockey development coaches recently spent a weekend teaching an estimated 200 kids in Nunavut various hockey skills, Sattler said. The program has worked with Rankin Inlet regularly over the last five years, including sending equipment to kids who may not otherwise have access to it.
The Jets tournament series has had several kids that were later drafted into the NHL, including Manitobans and a Jets prospect from Sweden who played in a similar tournament a decade ago, Sattler said.
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