The Canadian National Women’s Under-18 Championship took place Nov. 5-11 at the Ovintiv Events Centre in Dawson Creek, BC. Top U18 women’s hockey talent from across the country all vied to make an impression on Team Canada upper management, not just for this year’s U18 World Championships but tournaments down the line as well.
This tournament typically takes place every year except for Olympic years where the focus both in terms of time and money is on the centralizing senior team. As mentioned above, it’s a chance for the top U18 players in Canada to show they deserve to be playing for Gold in January. The tournament has seen the likes of Amanda Leveille, Marie-Philip Poulin, Christina Kessler, Meghan Agosta, and Jamie Lee Rattray all play in it. It’s a bit of a big deal for these U18 players who don’t have the benefit of centralized men’s leagues like the WHL, OHL, and QMJHL, so if there’s a time to make an impression this is it. And as we’ll see below, the players definitely made an impression.
Tournament Information
This is a week-long tournament that has eight teams: Team Ontario-Red, Team Ontario-Blue, Team Quebec, Team Manitoba, Team Saskatchewan, Team Alberta, Team British Columbia, and Team Atlantic (comprised of players from Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island). Players are chosen from their respective provinces to play on these teams and Ontario gets two teams because there are a lot of players in Ontario.
Manness the Menace
If you’re going to be named tournament MVP on the team that finishes 7th out of 8 teams you better be damned good and it’s hard to argue that Sara Manness wasn’t great. The ’07-born player not only lead her team in points but the whole tournament as well and without much support either. Manness was joined in the top 10 of tournament scoring by teammate Morgan Smith (8 points) but after that you’d have to go down all the way to 34th in tournament points to find the next Team Manitoba player. Manitoba scored 14 goals as a team and Manness contributed to 10 of them. She’s going to be on Team Canada come this January and what’ll make Team Canada management happy is Manness is still eligible for the 2025 U18 World Championship (U18 WC) as well. Her size, skill, shot, hands, and nose for the net make her the heir apparent for Caitlin Kraemer.
Ontario (Red) Gets its Revenge
At the 2023 Canada Games U18 Women’s Hockey Tournament, which happened in February 2023, Team Ontario rampaged through the tournament up until the semi-final where they were shockingly upset by Team Nova Scotia and had to settle for Bronze. Six members of that Bronze Medal team (Caitlin Kraemer, Emma Venisuo, Abby Stonehouse, Mackenzie Alexander, Hannah Clark, and Claire Murdoch) wanted their revenge and they got it. Ontario-Red would go onto score a tournament leading 29 goals enroute to Gold making it the 12th Gold Medal Ontario-Red has won at this tournament and 13th Gold for Ontario in total out of 13 U18 National Championships. They went 3-0 in the group stage, got their revenge over Team Nova Scotia (though in this tournament it was Team Atlantic) in the quarterfinal with a 7-1 win, brushed aside Alberta 4-0 in the semi-final, and in the Gold Medal Game scored three power play goals to win 3-2 in overtime.
Next Up, the Primerano/Lopušanová Bowl
Arguably the two best U18 women’s hockey prospects are set to compete in January in Nela Lopušanová and Chloe Primerano. Since the start of the season Chloe Primerano has made it clear in the CSSHL (Canadian Sport School Hockey League) by putting up 39 points in 11 games she is coming for Lopušanová’s title as best U18 player in women’s hockey. Primerano’s dominant start has continued into the U18 Nationals. No other defender came close to her in primary points as Primerano had eight primary points while the next closest was her defensive partner Gracie Graham with five. In the CSSHL Primerano leads the league in goals with 21 goals in 11 games and that goal scoring translated to this tournament as she scored six goals in six games to lead the tournament in goals over even the tournament MVP Sara Manness. All eight of Primerano’s points were primary points, she creates offence like no other defender we’ve seen before in the women’s game. The cherry on top of this is that just like Manness, Primerano is a ’07 born so she’s not only going to play in the 2024 U18 WC but also the 2025 U18 WC. The next two U18 WC’s are going to be must watch hockey like we’ve never seen before.
Penalties = Wins???
There were three teams in this tournament that tied for the fewest amount of goals (10): Team Atlantic, Team Ontario-Blue, and Team Alberta. Team Atlantic finished 8th out of eight teams in the tournament. Team Ontario-Blue finished 6th in the tournament. Team Alberta made it to the semi-finals and finished 4th in the tournament. The biggest difference between Team Alberta and the other two? Team Alberta finished 2nd in penalties taken by players (21) whereas Team Ontario-Blue (16) and Team Atlantic (15) finished in the bottom three of penalties taken by players. It’s simple logic really if the opposing team is bruised all over from sticks whacking them it’s a lot harder to score. Plus who wants to enter the offensive zone when the other team is playing “they can’t give us all penalties.” Perfectly Alberta.
Where’d She Come From?
At the Canadian U18 camp in the summer Sienna D’Alessandro was the stand-out. She lead the camp in scoring and still wouldn’t have made the Summer Series vs the USA if not for an injury on the Canadian roster that made the trip to the USA. If anyone needed a big tournament to force Team Canada to make a choice it was D’Alessandro. During group play it looked as though D’Alessandro might have played her way out of consideration and made the decision easy for Team Canada. Once it got to the playoffs though D’Alessandro showed up in a massive way. Against Manitoba she scores twice and assists on another goal. Then against Team British Columbia in the semi-final, ticket to the Gold Medal Game on the line, D’Alessandro scores a hat trick plus two primary assists for a five-point night. It’ll be up to Team Canada management to decide if D’Alessandro’s lack of production in group play will be held against her, does she ever deserve credit though for showing up when it mattered.
Team Canada’s Management Have Their Jobs on Easy Mode
Having returning players coming to any tournament, especially non-senior tournaments, is always welcomed by team management because it’s fewer players you need to worry about integrating and worry about how they’ll do on the big stage in pressure situations. For the 2024 U18 WC’s Team Canada will be seeing back big time players such as Caitlin Kraemer and Hannah Clark while other returnees such as Mackenzie Alexander will see a larger role this time around. When building the 2024 team Canadian management will want to add ’07 born players to get them ready for big roles in 2025. Not only will Team Canada management be able to add ’07 born players to the roster to prepare them for 2025 but they’ll play big roles in 2024. Sara Manness was the tournament MVP and Chloe Primerano is a player on par with Nela Lopušanová. Then you have speedster Stryker Zablocki and London McDavid who will be in small roles in 2024 to prepare for bigger roles in 2025. Last but certainly not least is Marilou Grenier who had a great tournament and will more than likely be on the roster at least getting experience to take over for Hannah Clark in 2025.
Team Canada U18 WC 2024 Roster Projection
(Ignore the positions, just looks nicer this way)
