There will be no Prince George content on Team B.C. at the Canada Winter Games female hockey tournament.
That roster shutout excludes all players from the Prince George-based Northland Dodge Northern Cougars, the top triple-A female midget team in the province.
That came a complete shock to Cougars assistant coach Stew Malgunas, who is convinced several of his players have proven themselves worthy of making the grade for the provincial female under-18 team.
"It was really disappointing to not have at least a couple of our players on the team, especially with it being in Prince George," said Malgunas. "We've got kids who really should be on that team. We're baffled with the whole process.
"Our goal this year is to basically prove all those people wrong who didn't think our girls were good enough to make that team and we're on our way to doing that."
The Cougars currently lead the B.C. Female Triple-A Hockey League with an 18-3-0 record and forwards Madison Fjellstrom and Sage Desjardins both rank in the top-10 in league scoring. Only two players from the triple-A league -- defenceman Mikayla Ogrodniczuk and forward Shannon Morris-Reade, both of the West Coast Avalanche -- were selected for the U-18 team.
Of the 20 players on Team B.C., 14 play for private hockey academies, including forward Carla Goodwin of Fort St. James, a former Cougar. Three members of the Pacific Steelers (Junior Women's Hockey League) were picked.
"In my opinion it's just way too weighted to the academy side, I know for a fact we have girls who are just as good if not better than some of those who made it," said Northern Cougars head coach Mario Desjardins.
Eighty girls were invited to the first high-performance evaluation camp in April in Salmon Arm, including six Northern Cougars -- forwards Sage Desjardins, Madison Fjellstrom, Ava Keis, Cassidy Mellot, Hunter Mosher, and Marissa Nichol; defencemen Chantelle Beadman-Rolph and Victoria Byer; and goalie Kelsey Roberts. Five of them -- Fjellstrom, Keis, Mellot, Mosher and Roberts -- competed in the second tryout camp in Duncan.
The B.C. male under-16 team for Canada Games includes two Prince George players now with the Cariboo Cougars major midget team -- goalie Dorrin Luding and forward Justin Almeida -- as well as Ethan O'Rourke of Penticton, a WHL Cougars prospect.
The female team roster also excludes Kiana Wilkinson of Prince George, a 17-year-old defenceman who played last year for the B.C. under-18 team. Wilkinson, now in her second season with the Pacific Steelers of the Women's Junior Hockey League, this week locked up a scholarship at St. Mary's University in Halifax next season. Wilkinson was told in May after a 42-player selection camp in Duncan she was not good enough for the team.
Wilkinson's father, Shane, said unlike the previous year, players who did not make the cut were not offered feedback on their strengths and deficiencies before they left the tryout camp.
"Kiana was pretty disappointed but she's moved on and she's focused on getting her scholarship," said Shane Wilkinson. "I tried to tell her before we left there, 'the team's not set. If you go and have a great start to the season they're obviously going to still be watching.' Even if you threw it up in the air with a couple of them who were close in ability. It's the kid's hometown. What better draw?"
While the B.C. roster for the male under-16 team in the Canada Games was not announced until Tuesday, the female roster was unveiled Aug. 28, long before any of the players began the current season. BC Hockey president Randy Henderson said the team's director of operations, former national team coach Nancy Wilson, wanted to have the team picked early so the players could get to know each other with team-building functions and tournament games in the fall.
"The girls are historically always a little earlier than the boys," said Henderson. "Last Canada Winter Games selection process we were in the same timeline where the girls were selected in the summer and the boys we waited until the last minute we can to send in the names.
"Nancy Wilson is very big on team building and I have no absolutely no doubt about her judgment. She's a very well-respected person around the female game and she's one of the most qualified in Western Canada."
Henderson, who was elected president of the B.C. branch in June, is from Prince George and can sympathize with the frustration of the Cougars coaches who thought their players should be on the team.
"It is disappointing to have the Winter Games in Prince George and not have a strong contingent from the north," said Henderson. "I look at the team Stew and Mario have going and they have a program here that is finally putting the north on the map, and that is a huge step from where we were five or six years ago. They've done a tremendous job.
"Is the evaluation of players 100 per cent objective? It's impossible. We do our best to to try make sure that selection process is as clean as possible."
