Dalton Thrower and the rest of the Under-16 boys of BC journeyed across the Pacific to face an old nemesis and an up-and-coming hockey nation in the Memorial Cup (Feb. 7-11) celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Nagano Olympics.After the ice settled in the round-robin versus Russia and two Japanese teams, Team BC was awarded the silver medal, second to the Japan Selects. Thrower, the 14-year-old defenceman who moved from Squamish to the North Shore last September, played a big role with his physical and offensive play. He said the Japan Selects, which consist of the country's top players and handed Team BC their only defeat, was surprisingly skilled. "They play a whole different style of hockey," he said. "They were small and fast and every time we hit them we got a penalty."Japan opened the scoring on a power play, but Thrower quickly responded with an end-to-end rush. He gathered his own rebound and fed Wade Murphy to tie the game 1-1. Team BC went ahead with another goal but Japan answered with three more in the second period. Although Team BC outshot Japan 14-4 in the third period, the Japanese goaltender and tournament MVP closed the door for a 4-2 victory.Thrower said his team got smothered with penalties by playing good old physical Canadian hockey. It worked against Russia in a 6-0 victory but the Japanese were able to capitalize with multiple power plays.Team BC finished the tournament with a 5-3 win against a Japanese high school team consisting of 18-year-olds. The Canadians were given fulltime interpreters, including the man who hosted the 1998 Canadian Olympic team."So he got to meet like Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros and guys like that. He had some pretty good stories," said Thrower. He said the Japanese people received the boys with open arms."It was cool because there were a lot of Japanese fans wearing Team Canada jerseys with Lemieux and Gretzky and Lindros," he said. "I think we had as many fans as the Japanese team did."Thrower moves on to Cranbrook-Kimberley for the BC Winter Games this weekend (Feb. 21-24) to represent the Vancouver-Squamish Zone 5 team. He was recently named an assistant captain.
