For as long as he can remember, Tyson Phare has had his mind set on becoming a Western Hockey League player.
As the son of a former WHL forward-turned defenceman, the 15-year-old from Maple Ridge is convinced the league is his pathway to the pros.
The Prince George Cougars need no convincing Phare has all the tools he'll need to make that happen and selected the five-foot-11, 185-pound centre in the first round, 18th overall, in Thursday's WHL draft in Calgary.
"When I was eight or nine I remember going to WHL games in Vancouver and watching Evander Kane and Milan Lucic and Brendan Gallagher and they would just take over the game and that was amazing to watch,'" said Phare.
"It's just surreal, it's a crazy feeling. We started talking to the Cougars just after Christmas time and it's definitely somewhere I'd love to be. I've heard that it's a great place and the community is really into the teams up there and I'm just excited to get up there and have a look around."
Phare was the top-line centre for the Yale Academy bantam prep team this past season. Playing in the Canadian Sports School Bantam Hockey League, he scored 18 goals and had 22 assists for 40 points in 28 regular-season games and had two goals and three assists in four playoff games.
"I'm a two-way centreman who can set up his teammates and is always in the right position defensively," said Phare, who skipped school Thursday and was watching on the WHL website when Cougars general manager Todd Harkins called his name at the draft podium.
"I feel I can slow the play down and create space for myself and my wingers and defenceman. I was always a smart player with the puck and always made quick decisions with it, so I never really got into too many problems controlling it."
Yale lost in the semifinal playoffs and had a strong run of success in tournament play and won the Rocky Mountain tournament in Calgary. The club also made the final at the Pat Quinn tournament in Vancouver and the John Reid tournament in St. Albert, in which Phare had 13 points in six games.
“Tyson Phare is a big-bodied forward who controls the play in front of the net and likes to get to the blue paint and score goals," said Harkins. "He competes hard, skates well and is reliable in all three areas of the ice.
"He was one of the better forwards in the draft and we got our guy. He wants to control the game and he's very strong and hard to knock off the puck and he's got great hockey I.Q. These are the types of players you get using the top 10 picks and we were able to get him at 18, so we're very excited."
Harkins, during his time as director of hockey operations at the North Shore Winter Club, coached Phare at one of the skills camps. He was one of a record 13 academy players picked in the first round of the WHL draft. Defenceman Kaiden Guhle, the brother of Cougars defenceman Brendan, was picked first overall by the Prince Albert Raiders.
With the addition of European players and more of an emphasis on skill, and less on physical play and toughness, Phare says his dad tells him the WHL is better than when he was in the league in the late 1980s. "It's different than when he played, definitely a lot higher quality," said Phare. "That was straight from his lips."
Kirk Phare, 49, who now operates a metal fabrication company in Maple Ridge, played three seasons in the WHL with the Calgary Wranglers, Seattle Breakers/Thunderbirds and Brandon Wheat Kings. Among his Seattle teammates were Larry Bernard and Craig Endean, who both grew up in Prince George.
The elder Phare says his son's work ethic is what made him a first-rounder. He admits Tyson did not inherit that trait from his father.
"If you're having a good day, he'll still outwork you," said Kirk Phare. "He's not at all like I was. He's faster and thinks on the fly and fortunately he's got his mother's long legs. He's a very fast kid who plays the game at a fast speed. He's a helluva lot faster than I was and he's not afraid to go to the net. Once he gets it in his mind to go to the net, you've got to knock him over, flip him over, or he'll be hitting your goalie.
"He has speed like Marian Hossa but he plays the game after Ryan Getzlaf. There's not any flash to his game but he's always in the right position, doing the right thing, always behind the puck. You'll never see him get a breakaway pass but he'll be the one giving the breakaway pass."
Kirk Phare started out as a forward and switched to defence later in his junior career when he hurt his knee. Tyson went the other way, playing defence most of his minor hockey career before he was turned into a centre two seasons ago playing bantam in Maple Ridge.
"Only two years ago he was one of the top defencemen in Western Canada for this age group and he was actually too defensive, so we made him play forward," said Kirk Phare. "This is an experiment gone right or wrong, depending on how you look at it."
Phare attends school at Yale Academy with forward Keegan Craik, the Cougars' fifth-round pick in 2016. As a 15-year-old, Phare is limited to a maximum of five games with the Cougars next season. He says he'll either play for the Yale Academy under-18 team or in the B.C. Hockey Major Midget League for the Vancouver Northeast Chiefs.
"From now until the end of school we're on the ice two or three times a week and we're in the gym every day, so the plan is to get a little bit stronger and faster and get me ready to play against the junior players," he said. "I've got a lot of work between now and the Cougars' training camp."
