Photo credit: Steve Dunsmoor

By Regan Bartel

Jeff Truitt is HC of Canada's U-18 team

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Jeff Truitt is no stranger to Hockey Canada.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise then, that the 57-year-old former head coach of the Kelowna Rockets will guide Canada’s entry at the world under-18 championships in Switzerland later this month.

“It is a real privilege to be the head coach of a national program”, Truitt told RocketFAN. “I am very proud to do it and to be a part of Hockey Canada again.”

With the Rockets in 2004, as an assistant coach to Marc Habschied, Truitt was the video coach for the Canadian world junior team, at the Ivan Hlinka tournament [Renamed the Hlinka Gretzky Cup in 2007], Truitt won a gold medal, followed by another appearance in the spring of 2007, when under then head coach Trent Yawney, they won the high-profile event in Finland.

This time, Truitt is the head coach, a role he currently holds with the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders.

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“You get to learn a lot from working with different coaches, and working with different players, so it’s a really special time.”

Canada first participated in the under-18 IIHF tournament in 2002.

“You are playing on a bigger ice with the Olympic size ice”, Truitt added. “The different officiating. The Canadian way is always been a hard-driving, pressure, physical type of game, so you really have to watch yourself over there because they call things pretty tight.”

The top priority for Truitt and the management staff is choosing players that are eligible to play at that tournament, and who have been eliminated from the CHL playoffs.

On that list could be Kelowna Rockets forward Andrew Cristall and d-man Caden Price.

“It all starts with teams that didn’t qualify for the playoffs”, Truitt said from his hotel room in Toronto. “They have to be under-18, so that narrows the pool a bit. Some guys at the end of the year are pretty banged up, with some needing surgery, so that might eliminate a couple of players. That hasn’t happened to us, but that does happen.”

Many of the players Truitt will be coaching will be eligible for the 2023 NHL entry draft.

The real challenge is formulating a roster, committing to players, yet making sure you have room to add additional high-end talent if they come available before the pucks drops on April 20th.

“You have to be careful because if you name a player on this roster, he is coming as there is no trying out or anything like that, so you have to be patient in your selection process, especially with guys you might want, who is available after the first round.”

Regina Pats forward Connor Bedard, while eligible to play, likely won’t after suiting up at for Canada at the world juniors at Christmas.

“Canada always wants the gold medal”, Truitt concluded. “We are no different. You want to assemble the best players you can. It is not always easy, especially in a tournament like this because we are a thrown together group.

“Canada is always expected to be a top team there.”