Tyson Phare made the cut.
The Ridge Meadows Minor Hockey product is one of 20 players selected to play for Team BC at the WHL Cup, against the best under-16 players from Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The WHL Cup will be played out from Oct.18-22 at WinSport in Calgary.
Phare was drafted into the Western Hockey League in the first round, 18th overall, by the Prince George Cougars.
Phare last played in the local association with the Rustlers Bantam A1 team in the 2015-2016 season, where he put up 29 goals and 46 points in 33 games.
Last season he moved on to the Yale Hockey Academy Bantam Prep team, where he had 18 goals and 40 points in 28 games, playing as the team’s top-line centre.
“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 Cougars general manager Todd Harkins at the time. “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 IQ. 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.”
The four team round-robin format is the first step in the Hockey Canada Program of Excellence, and assists the four western provincial hockey branches in evaluating the top prospects in this age group for future high-performance programs.
The majority of players participating in the event were selected in the WHL Bantam Draft in May 2017 and many of these top prospects will play major roles with WHL clubs in the seasons ahead.
Some notable players that have participated as part of Team BC include Jake Virtanen of the Vancouver Canucks, Morgan Rielly of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Sam Reinhart of the Buffalo Sabres.