It's been nearly a month since David Soltes suited up for the Prince George Cougars.
He hasn't played for the Cats since Dec. 17, when they lost at home to the Spokane Chiefs.
But it's not like Soltes was idle all that time. In fact, he was a busy 19-year-old right winger playing for Team Slovakia at the highest level possible for teenaged hockey players in the world junior tournament.
Soltes helped Slovakia win bronze at the tournament, the first medal for Slovakia since 1999. He scored his team's only goal in a 5-1 semifinal loss to Canada, then opened the scoring in a 4-2 bronze-medal win over Sweden on Jan. 6.
In the post-game celebration, Soltes was quoted as saying: "I't's indescribable feelings. For Slovakia it doesn't happen every day. This is like history. We will be happy forever."
Soltes returned to CN Centre with his medal Jan. 7, sporting his Slovakian team jersey, and received a standing ovation from the crowd. But due to a lower-body injury suffered in the final world junior game in Toronto he didn't play for the Cougars that night and missed the Cats' two road games in Victoria last weekend.
Soltes has been skating all week in practice and is expected to be back in the lineup tonight when the Cougar host the Portland Winterhawks in a two-game weekend series.
In 25 games this season Soltes has nine goals and eight assists for 17 points. But in his native Slovakia, a tiny country of 5.4 million people, none of the goals he's scored or will score this season in the Western Hockey League will have the same impact of the two he netted at the world junior tournament
"It's going to boost David's confidence and he'll be a huge part in us moving forward in the second half and hopefully he can contribute in our games," said Cougars assistant coach Roman Vopat, a native of the Czech Republic, which borders on Slovakia.
"I think it's a great accomplishment for that team, nobody even thought they had a chance of bringing a medal back to Slovakia. They played a tough game against the Slovakia and their goalie [Denis Godla] stood on his head and did it again in the bronze-medal game. It's a small country and to put together at team that's successful at the world juniors is tough."
In their only other meeting in 2014-15, the Cougars beat the Winterhawks 6-3 in the opening game of the season Sept. 20 in Portland. At the time, the Winterhawks had seven players away at pro camps.
Soltes was reminded at the world juniors how good Winterhawks forwards Nic Petan, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Chase De Leo really are. All three were stars for their respective teams, Petan with Canada, Bjorkstrand with Denmark and De Leo for the Americans.
The Winterhawks roster is studded with NHL draft picks, including four from the class of 2014 -- C Dominic Turgeon (Detroit, third round), RW Alex Schoenborn (San Jose, third round), C Keegan Iverson (New York Rangers, third round) and C De Leo (Winnipeg, fourth round) -- and three from the 2013 draft -- C Petan (Winnipeg, second round), RW Bjorkstrand (Columbus, third round) and D Anton Cederholm (Vancouver, fifth round).
Last week the 'Hawks traded another NHL prospect, goalie Brendan Burke (Arizona, sixth round in 2013) to Calgary for goalie Evan Johnson and a fourth-round bantam pick in 2016.
"For sure they're one of the top teams, we know they're a good team -- we caught them at a time when they were missing a lot of guys and I don't want to take away anything from our guys," said Cougars head coach Mark Holick. "They have a group of kids who are going to play in the National Hockey League, some maybe as soon as next year, so we've got to be ready. We have to work by committee and make sure we have all five guys above the puck and we can't give them speed through the neutral zone."
The Winterhawks are coming off a 6-2 loss Wednesday to the Blazers in Kamloops.
The Cougars will be without RW Kody McDonald and D Tomas Andrlik, both out with lower-body injuries. Game time tonight is 7 p.m.
