Conor McLaughlin was looking for a place to play midget hockey last summer and found what he was after, 853 kilometres away in Everett, Wash.
Just 15 years old at the time, he left his home in Prince George and joined the Everett junior Silvertips 16-and-under team coached by a guy named Turner Stevenson.
"I had a good year, I learned a lot from Turner, he helped me use my size down low and with my skating," said McLaughlin, one of 87 players who skated over the weekend in the Prince George Spruce Kings Prospects Camp at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
"I'm definitely more of a defensive defenceman but I like to bring my offensive game and get more into the play. I had to earn my icetime. Maybe I would have played a bit more here (with the Tier 2 midget Cougars) but I don't know if I would have got quite the coaching."
McLaughlin, a rookie defenceman, practiced with the team four or five days a week and played in exhibition games throughout the season but was not in the Silvertips lineup for their 22 league games and four playoff games. He traveled with the team to league jamborees in Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and Denver.
Last summer, McLaughlin tried out for the Cariboo Cougars major midget and Coast Inn of the North Cougars midget Tier 1 teams last summer and was cut from both. His dad Shawn has a friend who knows Stevenson and that led McLaughlin to Everett.
Stevenson, a former NHL right winger, grew up in Prince George and went on to win a Stanley Cup with New Jersey in 2003. He took over last summer as head coach of the Silvertips 16 U team and guided them to a second-overall finish in the 17-team North American Prospects Hockey League - an abrupt reversal of fortunes for a team that had just two points the previous season.
In his 13 years as an NHL forward with Montreal, New Jersey and Philadelphia, Stevenson played for the likes of Jacques Demers, Alain Vigneault, Pat Burns and Ken Hitchcock and now he's passing the tricks of the trade on to the young Silvertips, including his 17-year-old son Jakob, who is expected to play for the expansion 18U Everett team in the NAPHL next season.
"He's a tough coach, but he wasn't too hard, lots of skating and hard drills, but he's a great coach and we all loved his battle drills," said the six-foot-one, 170-pound McLaughlin, who turned 16 on March 25. "He brought up my compete level down in the corners, to always play physical and don't give anybody free walks to the net."
The Spruce Kings camp is one of several auditions McLaughlin has on his calendar over the next month as he tries for his ultimate goal of cracking the Cariboo Cougars' roster. He plans to attend the Silvertips' camp next weekend in Everett and the Salmon Arm Silverbacks and West Kelowna Warriors spring camps before he hits the major midget Cougars' camp May 5-7. If he doesn't make the Cougars he will likely return to Everett as a second-year player on the 16U team.
The Silvertips traveled by plane and McLaughlin said the roadtrips to big U.S. cities were the highlights of his season. He was billeted at the home of one of his teammates and attended high school in Edmonds, Wash. He'll finish the school year in Grade 10 at Prince George secondary school, where his high marks have placed him on the President's List.
By the time he's done this weekend, McLaughlin will have four games and a practice with Team Red, leading up to the Spruce Kings Top Prospects Game Sunday at 2 p.m. at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
"Realistically, I don't think I have a chance to make the (Spruce Kings)," he said. "This is just to get ready and have some icetime. It would be great to play for Cariboo."
"I could be better - some plays I did make and some plays I wish I would have made," he said. "We lost our first two games but won this one (a 4-3 win in a shootout over Team Gray Saturday morning). It's good hockey."
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