Junior A goalie gets thrill of a lifetime, serving as Team Sweden's emergency backup
Good Canadian boy Jack Ondrovic, in his words, will proudly wear his Team Sweden cap "till it falls off."
On Tuesday, the breakdown by nationality for the Team USA-Sweden world junior pre-competition game in Kingston included 22 Americans, 21 Swedes and a Canadian who plays for the Powassan Voodoos in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League.
With only one healthy goalie, Samuel Ward, Sweden turned to the 16-year-old Ondrovic as their No. 2 goalie after giving him a tryout in Ottawa just that morning. Instead of being home enjoying his holiday break during his first junior season away from home, he was on the Swedish bench watching top NHL prospects such as the Americans' Jack Eichel and Auston Matthews and teammate-for-a-night William Nylander fly up and down the ice.
"It's unbelievable, just a great experience," said Ondrovic, a 6-foot-4 goalie whom the North Bay Battalion chose in the sixth round of last spring's Ontario Hockey League priority selection draft. "I hope to get here one day. It's very, very good to get an idea of what I have to do to get here. It's very quick. Boys turn into men fast. It's unbelievable how much you can see a difference from Junior A to world junior.
"It was just cool," Ondrovic added. "I didn't expect this yesterday and life just throws stuff at you sometimes. It's always a learning experience and it's always fun."
The moral of the story: one team's misfortune is always someone else's opportunity. Sweden's projected No. 1 goalie, Buffalo Sabres draft pick Jonas Johansson, has been ruled out of playing in the tournament and 18-year-old Linus Söderström was also banged-up on Tuesday. That left Sweden, which held its training camp in Ottawa, to start working the phones in case bad things happened in threes and Ward was incapacitated.
Through Ondrovic's adviser, Andy Scott, and his personal goalie coach, Paul Schonfelder, they were able to get in touch with the goalie, who was eligible to play since it was an exhibition game. While some 16-year-olds might have lost all focus, Ondrovic quickly made sure to immediately ask permission from his general manager, Chris Dawson.
The Swedish team gave Ondrovic a hat, team toque and pennant as thanks for the support.
"They were a great bunch of guys, very kind, very welcoming," says Ondrovic, who had a four-person rooting section of his parents Frank and Tracey, 13-year-old brother Ford and girlfriend Erica Labele among the crowd of 4,029 at the K-Rock Centrre. "I'd like to see them to do well in the tournament; they work really hard and I'd like to see that take them as far as it will take them."
Ondrovic, who is of Slovakian descent, has been backing up Matt Young with the Voodoos, who are fourth in the NOJHL's East Division.
"It's been pretty good," he said. "I've been up with the Battalion and a few times and I'm just getting used to the pace of junior hockey."
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.
