Brandon Dent knows he's a longshot to get picked today in the WHL bantam draft.
That's no problem for the 14 year old Prince George minor hockey product. He's been pretty good lately at defying the odds.
A couple weekends ago at the BC Cup under-16 high-performance jamboree tournament in Salmon Arm, the five-foot-four, 120-pound Dent was not one of the guys WHL scouts expected to be the leading scorer in the six-team tournament. In five games, playing four or five shifts per period with the Penguins, Dent topped the scoring list with five goals and one assist, and that doesn't include a goal that was mistakenly credited to one of his linemates.
"I had a good weekend, I had a couple lucky bounces and a few breakaways and they were just going in," said Dent.
Dent's hustle and relentless work ethic made him one of the top point producers this past season for the Farr Fabricating bantam Tier 1 Cougars. Playing centre on a line with a pair of Grade-A snipers, in 52 games Dent totaled 101 points, second on the team.
"It's pretty nervewracking whether I'm going to get drafted or not," said Dent, while taking a break from a game of street roller hockey at his home in College Heights. "It would be real nice. My linemates really helped me out, we moved the puck really well and seemed to score lots of goals together."
Dent is more accustomed to the attention being focused on his Farr linemates - right winger Corey Cunningham, who led the team with 160 points, and left winger Declan MacEachern, the team's third leading scorer, who have long been on the radar of major junior teams.
"They've been getting emails and phone calls from WHL teams mostly the whole season," he said. "I don't know much about the NCAA but I would like to go to the WHL. I know a bunch of guys and my friend's dad (Shawn Gendron) and my coach (Mirsad Mujcin) played in the WHL and they said it was real good."
After Dent's performance in the BC Hockey jamboree, five WHL teams emailed questionnaires for him to send back, asking about his hockey background and family history and whether he was interested in playing major junior hockey. Dent has athletic parents. His dad Eddie was a provincial-calibre softball/baseball player and his mother Kristy excelled at softball.
MacEachern also comes from exceptional sporting stock. His dad Dave is a three-time Olympian who won gold for Canada in two-man bobsled and his mother, Triona Harrop,was a dancer, while older brother Connor plays defence for the Portland Winterhawks.
Another local possibility for the draft today is Colton Kitchen, a five-foot-11, 158-pound defenceman who played for the Farr bantams. Kitchen distinguished himself as a capable puck-moving d-man with above-average skating skills. Farr defenceman Matthew Marotta, has smart hockey instincts and good size, at five-foot-10, 170 pounds, and he's also garnered interest from the scouts.
"We're not too sure what the chances are but we're all hoping to get drafted," said Dent, who plans to attend the Cariboo Cougars spring identification camp at the Elksentre this weekend.
The Cougars didn't win any medals at the provincial tournament in March in Coquitlam but came out with a strong showing at the eight-team tournament, finishing with a 2-3 record, including close losses to perennial powerhouse Winter Club teams from North Shore Winter and Burnaby.
Prince George Cougars Northern B.C. scout Trevor Sprague watched the Farr bantams play often this season and says he wouldn't be stunned if the four locals get drafted.
"Cunningham is a good fast, skilled forward with a nose for the net and from the top of the circle down he's a pretty dangerous player," Sprague said. "Obviously for him, it's just getting bigger and stronger.
"Kitchen is a smooth-skating defenceman with good offensive skill who makes a good first pass and he has a good mind for the game and there's a lot of upside there. MacEachern is another guy with good skill and obviously he has a good pedigree as an athlete. He has a good mind for the game.
"Dent did very well at the U-16 BC Cup, he was a big surprise. For a smaller player, he impressed me probably the most, just on his aggression and puck pursuit and making good plays and making guys better around him. The kid always has a smile in his face, he loves the game. He tries to play a 200-foot game the right way and he plays like he's six-foot-two."
The Prince George Cougars hold the ninth-overall pick in the draft, which starts today at 7:30 a.m. (PDT). Sprague is the Cariboo Cougars head coach and he's reasonably sure one of the players signed up for this weekend's camp - forward Dylan Cozens of Whitehorse, Yukon - will get picked in the first round today. Cozens played last season for South Delta Hockey Academy.
Wayne Goodwin of Fort St. James, who played academy hockey last year at the Pursuit of Excellence in Kelowna, could also make the list of players taken in the annual bantam harvest.
Payton Krebs, a forward from Rocky Mountain House, Alta., is one of the most likely to be selected first overall by the Kootenay Ice. Sprague says Krebs draws comparisons with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Defenceman Bowen Byrum of Lethbridge is another possibility for the first-overall pick.
Progress of the seven rounds of the draft can be monitored on the league website, www.whl.ca.
