25 players to wear Maple Leaf to defend gold medal in Texas
FRISCO, Texas – Twenty-five players have been named to Canada’s National Men’s Under-18 Team as it looks to defend its gold medal at the 2025 IIHF U18 Men’s World Championship, April 23-May 3 in Frisco and Allen, Texas.
Three goaltenders, eight defencemen and 14 forwards – representing seven Members – were selected by head scout Byron Bonora (Brooks, AB), general manager Scott Walker (Cambridge, ON) and Kyle Turris (New Westminster, BC), of the management group, with input from Benoit Roy (Sudbury, ON), director, hockey operations.
Among the players are 12 who won a gold medal with Canada’s National Men’s Summer Under-18 Team at the 2024 Hlinka Gretzky Cup (Beauchesne, Beckman, Cootes, Czata, Hopkins, Huang, Ivankovic, Kilfoil, Martin, Reschny, Schmidt, Smith), seven that suited up at the 2024 U17 World Challenge, including four who won gold with Canada White (Edwards, Lin, Rudolph, Verhoeff) and three who are making their Program of Excellence debut (Gard, Hood, Sawchyn).
“The opportunity to represent your country and defend a gold medal is not something that happens often,” Walker said. “These young men have worked hard all season and earned this opportunity to play on the international stage here in Texas. As a staff, we’re excited about the talent, work ethic and character of this group and we are excited to get things going. This tournament is an important step in athlete preparation for the World Juniors, the premier event of the Program of Excellence.”
Canada opens the 2025 IIHF U18 Men’s World Championship today, taking on Slovakia (5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT).Canada will also play Latvia, Finland and Norway in the preliminary round before the tournament concludes with the medal games on May 3.
TSN and RDS, the official broadcast partners of Hockey Canada, will broadcast 16 and 10 tournament games, respectively. TSN will broadcast all Team Canada preliminary-round games, as well as the quarterfinals, semifinals and medal games, while RDS will broadcast all Team Canada preliminary-round games, two quarterfinals, the semifinals and medal games.
For more information on the 2025 IIHF U18 Men’s World Championship, please visit the official tournament website at IIHF.com.
For more information on Hockey Canada and Canada’s National Men’s Under-18 Team, please visit HockeyCanada.ca, or follow along through social media on Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok.
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For more information, please contact:
Branden Crowe
Coordinator, Communications
Hockey Canada (Team)
204-730-2147