Stewart, Burgart Named To Team Canada West

Surrey Eagles’ forwards Jeff Stewart (Surrey, BC) and Desi Burgart (North Vancouver, BC) have been officially named to the Team Canada West squad for the World Junior ‘A’ Challenge. Both players will suit up in Bonnyville, Alberta from December 11th to 17th at the tournament, which will keep them out of the Eagles’ lineup until after the Christmas break.

Burgart (’98) and Stewart (’98) are second and third in team scoring, respectively. Burgart has 12 goals and 18 assists in 31 games, and Stewart has 11 goals and 17 assists in 29 games. The scoring punch provided by the two centremen will be missed by their team, but a chance to suit up for their country was too much to pass up.

In an earlier interview after being selected for camp, Burgart called it a “big honour.” Continuing on, “There are a lot of great players in this league, and in western Canada. Some pretty prestigious players have gone through the tournament. To get the opportunity to play for that team would be tremendous.”

The Canada West roster is made up of 11 players from the BCHL, five from the AJHL, three from the SJHL, and three from the MJHL.

Many former WJAC participants have gone on to star in the NHL including Nail Yakupov, Kyle Turris, Vladimir Tarasenko, Reilly Smith, Calle Jarnkrok, Jaden Schwarz, David Pastrnak, Yevgeni Kuznetzov, Riley Nash, Troy Stecher, Hampus Lindholm, Zach Hyman, Ben Hutton, Jesper Fast, Beau Bennett, Nikolaj Ehlers, Jimmy Hayes, Mikhail Grigorenko and Alexander Burmistrov.

Team Canada West opens play at the 2016 WJAC with a game at 7:30 p.m. MST on Sunday, Dec. 11 against Switzerland. The gold-medal game will be a 5 p.m. MST start on Saturday, Dec. 17 and will be carried by TSN.