Benn is one of the top young NHL players now, but five years ago, nobody was predicting he’d be where he is today. The 17-year-old left wing was putting up some big numbers for Victoria during the 2006-07 season, but he wasn’t creating much of a ruckus on the radar of those scouting young talent for the NHL draft.
The BCHL, a Junior ‘A’ league, is a level below and isn’t as heavily scouted as the Canada’s Major Junior hockey leagues – the Ontario Hockey League, Western Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League – which produces a majority of draft picks each year, including 46 percent of the players drafted by NHL teams in 2007.
Playing in Victoria didn’t help – as you just don’t hop in your car and drive to Victoria, which is on Vancouver Island.
“You have to take a ferry or an airplane to get to where he played in junior,” Holland said. “The Victoria Royals weren’t in the Western Hockey League at the time and it was a process to get over there. You lost a day-and-a-half of travel because of the ferry. Lots of scouts decided to go see the (WHL’s) Vancouver Giants or the Seattle Thunderbirds.”
Adding to Benn’s low profile that year was that he did not get invited to play at two events where he might have caught the attention of several scouts. One was the Junior ‘A’ Challenge, a tournament featuring top Junior ‘A’ players from Canada and other countries. The other was then called the CJAHL Top Prospects game, which featured top Junior ‘A’ players from around Canada'.
j/k
