THREE North Shore players were named on Monday to Team Canada's final selection camp for the 2013 World Junior Hockey Championship tournament scheduled for Dec. 26-Jan. 5 in Ufa, Russia.
Defencemen Morgan Rielly and Griffin Reinhart, both of West Vancouver, and forward Colton Sissons of North Vancouver will report to camp in Calgary next Monday and begin on-ice sessions Tuesday hoping to earn a spot on the team that makes Canadian kids famous every year during the Christmas holidays.
The Reinhart and Rielly connection seemed almost inevitable given the duo's shared history. Both grew up playing on the blue line for the Hollyburn Huskies and they were picked back-to-back in the top five of the 2012 NHL entry draft, Reinhart going fourth overall to the New York Islanders and Rielly fifth to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This year Rielly, fully recovered from a serious knee injury that limited him to 18 regular season games last season, has scored 26 points in 30 games for the Western Hockey League's Moose Jaw Warriors.
Reinhart has scored 10 points and is plus-10 in 28 games with the Edmonton Oil Kings who sit atop the WHL's Central Division.
Sissons, a former North Shore Winter Club player, has 27 points and is plus-24 in 27 games with the Kelowna Rockets in the WHL's B.C. Division. He was drafted in the second round, 50th overall, by the Nashville Predators in the 2012 draft.
The Team Canada roster is expected to be finalized Dec. 13 with the team heading to Europe Dec. 15 to get in some exhibition games before the tournament begins on Boxing Day.
