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SPORTSCENTRE Reporter

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TSN Toronto reporter Mark Masters checks in daily with news and notes from Team Canada’s selection camp in St. Catharine’s, Ont., Dec. 12-15. Team Canada had an off-ice workout ahead of tonight's game against USports.

Tyler Steenbergen has scored 86 goals in his last 99 regular-season games with the Swift Current Broncos in the WHL. Over the last season and a half nobody has more goals in Canadian junior hockey. But Steenbergen only recently found his way onto Team Canada’s radar for the World Juniors. 

“It’s been unbelievable,” the 19-year-old said after his first day at the final selection camp. “You know, it’s my first time sticking around with Hockey Canada. They’re first class and th​ey are treating us all with such great respect. It’s pretty cool wearing the jersey for the first time.”

Steenbergen wasn’t invited to Canada’s Summer camp just a few months ago. It wasn’t the first time he was passed over. He wasn’t picked in the NHL in his first year of eligibility before being scooped up in the fifth round by Arizona last June. 

“Knowing that stuff, it definitely makes me put in a lot of extra work,” Steenbergen admits. “It’s been driving me my whole life. Obviously these past couple years I haven’t been making that jump as soon as other guys, but I’m here now and I plan to make the most of it.”

Steenbergen’s numbers seem almost too good to be true. He has 35 goals in 27 games this season. 

“You’re kind of, like, astonished,” said defenceman Jake Bean, who plays for Calgary in the WHL. “You’re like, ‘How is this happening?’ We all saw him at Super Series and are like, ‘What’s going on, man?’”

 But when you see him up close, things start to make sense. 

“His shot, his release, his offensive instincts, everything, it’s unbelievable,” said Bean, one of seven returning players on the Canadian roster. 

“It’s the way he gets that shot off,” said Broncos coach Manny Viveiros. “He’s got a good wrist shot and he can get it off in tight areas and anywhere near the top of the circle he’s got a real good chance to score.”

But what impresses Viveiros the most has nothing to do with Steenbergen’s offensive skill. The coach had a heart-to-heart discussion with the Sylvan Lake, Alta., native before the start of the 2016-17 season. 

“I said to him, ‘Tyler, do you want to play in the NHL?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘We know you can score goals, but to go to that next level you’re going to have to play that 200-foot game. Scoring 50 goals in the WHL doesn’t automatically translate to the NHL.’ And he bought in right away. 

“Everyone talks about his ability to score goals, but what I like most, more than anything is, we challenged him at the beginning of last year to be a 200-foot player and now he’s one of our better defensive players, one of our key penalty killers and one of our go-to guys if we have a lead with one minute left and stuff like that.”

Listed at 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, Steenbergen isn’t the biggest guy, but he worked on getting stronger in the summer. 

“I know I’m a smaller guy on the ice and to compete with the bigger players I got to be able to win those small-area battles and this summer was a big one for me in getting bigger and stronger.”

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Steenbergen loves playing in Swift Current, which is the smallest WHL market. 

“It’s awesome,” he said. “I think our team is one of the tightest in the CHL probably, because we all live five minutes away from each other. There’s nothing else to do really, but hang out with the guys and that creates a great team chemistry.”

 

How popular is Steenbergen in Swift Current these days? Well, they actually sell a Steen-burger at the concession stands. 

“Our PR guy did a pretty good job with that,” Steenbergen said with a laugh. “I put on bacon, lettuce and ketchup. I’m a pretty plain guy and so that’s what it’s gotta be.”

Viveiros said Steenbergen is “constantly” chirped by his teammates because of the promotion and yet the tasty treat seems to be selling well. 

“For whatever reason the people love it,” the coach said with a laugh. “It’s absolutely awful. I won’t even have one, but the people in Swift Current love it.”

What do Steenbergen’s potential Canadian teammates think? 

“It’s simple,” said Bean with a laugh. "It’s simple. Yeah, it sounds good. I’d probably order it.”

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Bean had just two assists in seven games at last year’s World Juniors, but enters this year’s tournament with higher expectations and a healthy swagger. 

“Definitely I’m more confident,” the 19-year-old said. “You know what to expect and how the tournament evolves. Having that experience will help me.”

The feedback from Carolina has also helped Bean’s confidence grow. Last month, Hurricanes coach Bill Peters was asked about the team's first-round pick in 2016 (13th overall) and offered a glowing review. 

“High end,” Peters said. “High end on the power play, high end moving the puck, real good calmness about him, real good disposition, sees the ice real well, plays the modern game well. The higher the level of game with the more quality players in the right spots makes it easy for Beaner, so when Beaner has to play a more scramble-type game then it doesn’t quite fit his skill set and his hockey sense.”

Peters didn’t stop there.  

“He’s got elite hockey sense and was real close to making our team this year,” the coach noted. “He didn’t make our team, but if it would’ve been three years ago he would’ve made our team, we were a bit thinner on the back end. But I anticipate Beaner making his debut with us next season for sure.”

That’s quite an endorsement considering Carolina’s strength on the blueline right now. 

“I think really highly of Bill so for him to have that said about me is pretty cool," Bean said. 

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Like Steenbergen, Drake Batherson wasn’t picked in his first year of NHL draft eligibility and wasn’t invited to Canada’s World Junior Summer camp. The forward inserted himself into the World Junior conversation with an incredible start to the season in Cape Breton where he led the QMJHL in scoring before sustaining an injury in mid-November.

“I’m just enjoying every minute of it,” a smiling Batherson said after his first day at Canada’s selection camp. “People will say I’ve come a long way in the last couple years and I’d have to agree. I definitely wouldn’t have thought I’d be coming along this quick, but I guess all my hard work is paying off.”

Batherson, who has 39 points in 24 games this season, is a late bloomer in the literal sense. He stood only 5-foot-5 in his QMJHL draft year and, as a result, didn’t get picked. It was then that he strongly considered giving up on a hockey career and focusing on another sport. 

“It was a big decision for me,” Batherson recalled. “I won a lot of golf tournaments that one summer and I was debating going the golf route and maybe getting a scholarship that way, but my first passion was for hockey and I decided to stick with it and keep working at it and I’m glad it all worked out.”

Batherson’s dad, Norm, played pro hockey – including seven seasons in Germany – so some would say the passion for the game was bred into him. But he also had some inside information that helped him stay the course with hockey. 

“A few years ago, I went in to see the doctor to see if I had any room in my growth plates and he said I had tons of room so I figured it was coming any day and that one summer there I sprouted up five or six inches right after the Q draft. …Just getting used to my body on the ice and with my skating was the hardest part, but I think I’m getting used to it now.”

And while Batherson, who now stands 6-foot-2, seems to have made the right call with hockey, he still golfs quite a bit, especially with his dad.

“We have some completive golf games. He’s around a scratch golfer as well. I beat him in the men’s club one year and he was pretty fired up about that, but he pounded me a few years ago so we’re back even and in the summers we still have some good matches.”

How long can the younger Batherson drive it? 

“Probably close to 300 yards. You know, I’m a little rusty. It used to be just 250 right down the pipe, but now I’m kind of all over the map.”

Batherson’s latest challenge was the aforementioned injury. He was slashed on the hand by Moncton’s Dylan Seitz fracturing his right pinky finger. Seitz was suspended three games for the play, which elicited comparisons to the Sidney Crosby slash on Marc Methot last season. 

“The trainer in Ottawa said it wasn’t quite as bad, but it was a similar injury so it was good, because they know how to deal with it,” said Batherson, who was picked by the Senators in the fourth round last June and rehabbed the injury in Belleville with the team’s AHL affiliate. “I feel pretty near 100 per cent and ready to go. I got a few stitches and had a splint on for a couple weeks, but could still skate.”

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Lineup for tonight’s game against USports all-stars:

Katchouk-Glass-Raddysh 
Gadjovich-McLeod-Lind
Comtois-Howden-Steenbergen 
Kaspick-Ang-Batherson
Suzuki 

Ferraro-Makar
Bean-Foote 
Stanley-Cholowski 
Mahura

Harvey, DiPietro

Hart, Point will play for USports 

Scratches: 

F: Steel, Kyrou, Dube, Thomas, Formenton 
D: Fabbro, Timmins, Clague, Mete