Ranford ready for U-18 camp

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
It may be a touch warm outside but summer is over for Brendan
Ranford.
The end came this morning when he boarded a plane in Edmonton and headed for Calgary. By tonight, he will be on the ice with Team Red as Canada’s
Under-18 team begins a selection camp.
”I feel ready,” Ranford, a 17-year-old forward with the WHL's Kamloops
Blazers, said late Thursday night from his home in Edmonton.
”Obviously, everybody is hoping to make the team and it would be a great
honour. But I feel ready for this camp and I'm hoping my readiness will help
me make the team.”
Hockey Canada has invited 40 players to the camp. Head coach Bob Boughner of the OHL's Windsor Spitfires and assistants Mark Holick (Kootenay Ice) and
Chris DiPiero (OHL's Oshawa Generals), along with head scout Al Murray, will
name a 22-play roster on Tuesday evening and the team will leave for Europe
the next morning.
Canada will play two exhibition games, against Slovakia on Friday and the
U.S. on Aug. 9, in Piestany, Slovakia, before beginning play in the Ivan
Hlinka Memorial tournament that runs through Aug. 15 in Piestany and
Breclav, Czech Republic.
Canada is in the A Pool with the U.S., Sweden and Switzerland, and will play
its round-robin games in Breclav.
Ranford has a number of friends and acquaintances on the camp roster, like
defenceman Gregg Sutch of the OHL's Sarnia Sting and forwards Ryan Spooner
of the OHL's Peterborough Petes and John McFarland of the OHL's Sudbury
Wolves, all of whom he knows from having lived in Ontario.
”Going down the roster,” Ranford said, “it's like 'oh, I know that guy,
don't know him, know him, know him.' . . . Spooner was good friend of mine.
We played against each other a lot.”
Two of his best friends -- defencemen Mark Pysyk of the Edmonton Oil Kings
and Alex Petrovic of the Red Deer Rebels -- also are to be in camp.
”Mark Pysyk . . . we talk a lot and text every day,” Ranford said, “and Alex
is one of my good buddies from school.”
Ranford doesn't anticipate having any problems competing with and against
friends.
”If you're focused on you making the team, you should be fine,” he reasoned.
”Right?”
When Ranford skates onto the ice tonight at the Father David Bauer Olympic
Arena, it also will signal the beginning of his draft season. He is eligible
for the NHL's 2010 draft.
”I feel good about it,” he said. “Everybody is pretty nervous about if
they're going to get drafted . . . or if not. If I get drafted, I'll be
happy; if not, I'll just work harder.”
What he won't do is let the draft dominate his thought process.
”That's what gets the worst of you sometimes,” he stated.
The Blazers' first selection, 15th overall in the 2007 bantam draft, Ranford
has spent much of this summer getting ready.
”I've been skating a lot,” Ranford said, allowing that he has been on the
ice a lot more than he was last summer. “I felt that was one of the weaker
parts of my game. I felt getting a skating coach would actually improve my
skating and it has.”
He spent the last month living with a grandfather in Red Deer and working
with skating coach Val Norrie.
”I feel I've improved a lot,” said the 5-foot-10, 180-pound Ranford, who has
grown an inch and gained 20 pounds over the last year. “I feel bigger and
better. I feel good.”
Last season, as a WHL rookie, Ranford totaled 27 points, including 13 goals,
in 66 games. He took time out over Christmas to play for Team Pacific in the
U-17 World Hockey Challenge in Port Alberni, putting up seven points in six
games.
However, he may have played his best hockey in the playoffs, showing some
grit and earning three assists as the Blazers were swept by the Kelowna
Rockets. That may have been a sign that he has found his comfort zone.
”Every rookie probably goes through that,” he said. “You feel really
nervous, don't know the speed and stuff like that. The next season, I think
everybody gets used to it and you feel a lot more confident going into the
season and it feels a lot better.”
JUST NOTES: Hockey Canada added Medicine Hat Tigers G Tyler Bunz to the
selection camp roster, replacing the injured J.P. Anderson of the OHL's
Mississauga IceWolves. . . . Fourteen of the players scheduled to take part
in the selection camp played in the WHL last season.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com