Playmaking sensation Colton Mateychuk was part of a spring hockey team that competed in the Brick Tournament in Edmonton, and the assist wizard says he had a great time on and off the ice.
Starting in hockey at a pretty young age, "I was four," Mateychuk says proudly about when he first got onto skates, the young star remembers it took little time for him to fall in love with the game. "I remember I just loved skating and scoring goals," he says with a big smile.
With his winter team being based out of Steinbach, Mateychuk says he's loved growing up with his teammates. "It's pretty cool, I've been playing with them for quite a while."
Once the winter season is done, Mateychuk switches his focus to spring hockey, and he says going from one to the other is pretty easy. "There's no real difference. Hockey is hockey."
Recently, Mateychuk and his spring team went off to Edmonton, an experience he loved. "It was very cool and a very good experience. We did pretty good, as a team. We won two our of our five games. I did good, I got lots of assists."
He may have grown up loving scoring goals, but as his hockey life has gone along, Mateychuk says his focus as shifted a bit. "I like being the guy to setup goals," he says with a laugh.
Playing hockey in Edmonton was great, but Mateychuk says that time with friends away from the rink was also pretty special. "It was very fun, especially at the water park in Edmonton. It was a lot of fun. We have guys from Winnipeg and even two from Ontario. Getting to be with guys I haven't played with before is neat."
Mateychuk is quick to point out that it's not too different for him playing with guys he's never played with before. "Kind of, but not really. You just have to get to know them and we can do that pretty quick."
It was stiff competition in Edmonton, but Mateychuk was proud of the teams efforts and believes it will help his game going forward. "There were some very good teams there. It makes me want to work harder to find that next level."
As Colton Mateychuk now sets his sights on winter hockey, his father Ryan says he couldn't be prouder of how his son and the team did in Edmonton. "It was pretty special to watch, for sure. I wasn't able to make it out there, my wife took Colton, I was with my daughter and my other son traveling all over parts of the country for baseball, but they had an Unbelievable live feed, we could watch it like it was an NHL game. It was as good video as you could hope for with minor hockey. It had play-by-play and everything, it was really cool to watch him that way."
Being a dad, the elder Mateychuk says he was mindful about his sons schedule and how much hockey he was playing all year, but he says Colton wouldn't have it any other way, right now. "It was one of my concerns, he's done spring for the last few years, but this tournament, you start early. The tryouts were in August, the team isn't picked until Christmas time, and then the group is together throughout the whole year. They'll skate a little bit in the winter, but when spring roles around, they're skating six hours a week together and traveling around. The biggest thing for Colton is that it's fun for him. If he wasn't skating, he's be chasing around baseballs or doing something else. It's not a chore for him to go out and play hockey, it's something he want's to do and loves to do. When that last skate ended, he was already asking when he could get back out on the ice. It's pretty cool."
To get these experiences at 10-years-old and as a family, Ryan says it's pretty special. "It's for sure a cool experience, but we can lose sight that he's just a young guy at a great hockey tournament, but at the end of the day, he's still a kid and that's the message we've given him. Go enjoy hockey and it's nice to be at that level but he's still just 10-years-old playing hockey, do it because you love it."
The tournament highlight for Colton Mateychuk was his game-winning assist after his team came all the way back from being down 4-1. Check out the video below.