Spirit of the north fills camp
Northern Ontario will pipeline a prolific player presence when the Saginaw Spirit holds its prospect camp this weekend.
Of the 33 players who will be at the prospect camp of the Ontario Hockey League team, no less than seven are from northern towns.
A pair of 2001 birth-year forwards from Sault Ste. Marie will be attending their first OHL camp as 2017 draft picks of the Spirit. Saginaw took Nick Porco in the first round of the April 8 minor midget draft and followed up by making Camaryn Baber one of its third-round selections.
Also at camp will be 2000 birth-year defenseman Brandon Atkins from Sudbury. Atkins was Saginaw’s fourth-round pick at the first-ever, under-18 draft that was held on April 12 of this year.
Meanwhile, four others from northern Ontario who skated with the Spirit as 2000 birth-year rookies in 2016-2017 will bring some youthful experience to the Saginaw prospect camp. They are holdover forwards Damien Giroux, Maxim Grondin and Danny Katic and goalie Cameron Lamour.
Giroux and Lamour are from the Sudbury area, Grondin hails from Hearst and Katic calls South Porcupine home.
Not able to attend the Saginaw prospect camp is 2016 draft pick Dylan Bond from North Bay. The high-scoring, 2000 birth-year defenseman broke his ankle in the Great North Midget Hockey League championship series and is still recovering from the injury.
Nice to see the Northern boys getting some attention. Def less exposure opportunities up this way so sometimes the scouts are taking a bit of flyer on them. They do pay off from time to time, hopefully this works out for all.
With Saginaw taking an interest in N.O prospects, Phil Caron would be worth an invite to camp as a walk on. Undersized D but has good offensive instincts and was one of the nicer skaters in the league. Put up very solid numbers for a 16 yr old D playing against older and bigger boys.
There’s much more kids coming up the pipe as well . Check out 2002 on next year’s Kapuskasing AAA Flyers