OHL North Bay Battalion

Paul Gets the Call to Canada's Camp

December 1, 2014 - Ontario Hockey League (OHL)
North Bay Battalion News Release


NORTH BAY, Ont. - Forward Nick Paul of the North Bay Battalion has been chosen to attend the Canadian national junior team's selection camp, Hockey Canada announced Monday.

Paul, 19, is one of 12 Ontario Hockey League players on the 29-man roster for the camp, which runs Dec. 11-15 at Toronto and St. Catharines. Canada will have 22 players at the World Junior Championship, to be held at Montreal and Toronto from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5.

"It's been crazy," said Paul, who admitted to "tossing and turning" Sunday night in anticipation of the selection camp announcement.

Paul, who has skated at both centre and left wing this season, attended the national team's summer development camp in August and played in one of two OHL games in the recent Subway Super Series against Russia.

Seven players invited to the selection camp played in the 2014 tourney at Malmo, Sweden, where Canada finished fourth. Seventeen forwards, 10 defencemen and only two goaltenders were invited to the camp.

"Everybody at the camp is a good player," said Paul. "I feel like my game will get better at the camp playing with those guys. I feel like I'm the kind of player that can help them win. I've been in situations where the game has been on the line, and I believe I'm the kind of player who can rise to the occasion."

Mississauga resident Paul, six-foot-three and 221 pounds, leads North Bay in scoring with 18 goals and 13 assists for 31 points in 24 games.

"There'll be a lot of centres at the camp, and I'll go in there and play wherever they want me to. I'm not only a big guy. I think I have good speed and good vision and I'm strong with the puck. I don't take a shift off. Big hits or big plays can definitely get the team pumped up and the crowd into it, especially since the tournament is in Canada."

Canada, which hasn't won gold since Brampton Battalion centre Cody Hodgson starred at Ottawa in 2009, hasn't secured a medal since 2012, when the tournament was held at Calgary and Edmonton.

"There'll be a lot of pressure to win at home," acknowledged Paul. "But there'll be players there with lots of experience who know how to bear down and handle pressure when things get tough."

Paul, who went unclaimed in the OHL Priority Selection in his first year of eligibility, was tabbed by Brampton in the fifth round in 2012. He produced 12 goals and 16 assists for 28 points in 66 games in 2012-13 and recorded 46 points, including 26 goals, in 67 games last season before ranking third in team playoff scoring with 12 goals and six assists for 18 points in 22 games.

The Dallas Stars selected him in the fourth round of the National Hockey League Draft in 2013. His rights were dealt to the Ottawa Senators last July 1 as part of a trade for onetime Battalion centre Jason Spezza.

"I came into the league as a kid who wasn't taken as a 16-year-old. I never had expectations like this. I was told to work hard in my first season and things would fall into place, and that's what happened. I was a bit of an underdog, but I ended up getting drafted. I kept working hard and I had goals I was going to keep striving for, and I've been hitting them."

Hodgson is one of three members of the Battalion to play for Canada at the world tournament. Defenceman Jay Harrison won a bronze medal in 2001 and, with centre Jay McClement, a silver in 2002.

Battalion head coach Stan Butler held the same position with the Canadian juniors in 2001 and 2002 after serving as an assistant to Tom Renney, now president of Hockey Canada, in 1999.

The last Battalion member to compete in the tournament was goaltender Matej Machovsky of the Czech Republic in 2013.

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