There will be a local rooting interest when Team Canada hits the ice at the World Junior Championship later this month in Ottawa.
Former National Hockey League player and Cambridge native Scott Walker is serving as a player development coach for Hockey Canada at the tournament.
Walker, who was just inducted into the Syracuse Hockey Hall of Fame last month and is a 2013 Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame inductee, is no stranger to the international stage.
He served as an assistant coach at the 2024 tournament in Gothernburg, Sweden and won a gold medal as an assistant at the 2015 tournament in Toronto and Montreal.
Other stops on his coaching journey include at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament, Spengler Cup and 2018 Winter Olympics.
Locally, Walker is a partner, president of hockey operations and former head coach with the Ontario Hockey League's Guelph Storm. He helped lead the Storm to the J. Ross Robertson Cup and Memorial Cup appearances in 2014 and 2019.
Most well known for his time on the ice as a player, the former Cambridge Winter Hawk played 829 games over 15 seasons in the NHL. He scored 151 goals and added 246 assists while playing for Vancouver, Nashville, Carolina and Washington.
Team Canada's selection camp for the 2025 tournament starts today and runs through Friday. Once the roster is finalized, a main camp will take place between Dec. 15 and 18 before they play three exhibition games against Switzerland, Sweden and Czechia.
Canada begins the tournament on Boxing Day versus Finland and round out the preliminary round with games against Latvia, Germany and the United States.
The Gold Medal Game is scheduled for Jan. 5.