For the Canadian men’s Junior National Team the next few months will shape how the rest of an important year will go.
With 2016 Junior World Cup qualification on the line in Toronto in May and the World Cup at the end of the year, the year ahead carries a lot of weight, which is why having a core group of athletes centralized in Vancouver beginning this week is the key ingredient to success.
“It’s huge for us. It kind of gives us a competitive advantage,” says Canadian Under-21 coach Inderpal Sehmbi, who coached a coached a Canadian Under-18 to a silver medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China in 2014. “These guys will be living and playing with each other for three or four months. You need every advantage you can get going into Pan Ams.”
The 2016 Junior Men’s Pan American Championship is a seven-team tournament that will be held in Toronto from May 20-28. The top two finishers at the tournament earn a spot in the 2016 Junior Men’s World Cup in India this December.
Safe to say there is a lot riding on the next few months of preparation for Canada’s junior men.
The squad will be training multiple times a week on and off the field, and will have access to National Team coaches, support staff, and facilities. It’s not something that can be replicated with athletes training individually across the country, says Sehmbi.
“Kids are running 8-10 kilometers a training session, 2-3 times a week” he explains. “It’s too hard to simulate on your own.”
The short term goal of centralization is to make physiological and technical gains to a point where the junior team is ready to challenge for a spot at the 2016 Junior World Cup and perform well if it can qualify.
To meet this end, they will be leveraging one of the biggest assets available to them in Vancouver: the senior men, who are preparing for the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil this August.
“For us, the big thing is to piggy back on the senior team,” says Sehmbi. “Playing against the senior development team and hopefully the top sixteen. When you have a team preparing for the Olympics, that’s the best competition you can get.”
The level of training the juniors will see throughout the months leading up to the Pan Ams also works toward a broader goal of developing athletes to sustain Canada’s elite and competitive senior men’s team through 2016 and beyond.
“It’s great to qualify for a Pan Ams, but you want to get these kids ready for a senior team,” adds Sehmbi. “It’s not feasible for kids to be playing three months of the year and expect to make a senior team.
“Our job is to get these guys ready to play on the men’s team. That’s our first goal, to make them international athletes.”
The Junior Development Squad begins its centralized training period Monday with fitness testing at the Richmond Olympic Oval and will be on the field training on Tuesday evening at UBC’s Wright Field.
