We’re always on the lookout for the next generation of Canucks, to carry on a tradition this team began in 1971. It takes a particular kind of person and player to join the Canucks family — and the players who arrive at Main Camp already knowing something about us tend to do better than the ones who don’t.
So get to know us first. Here are eight ways to do it. The first two are applications to play. The rest are ways to be part of the team without one.
Why players choose Niagara Falls
Every Junior A team will tell you it develops players. Here is what that actually means here.
Who you’ll be coached by
Frank Pietrangelo is our President, Director of Hockey Operations and Head Coach. He played 141 games in the National Hockey League and won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991, and he played his junior hockey here. He has twice been named coach of the year in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Golden Horseshoe conference, winning the Tom Kelly Memorial Trophy in 2016 and 2017.
Assistant coach Carson Johnstone was the first head coach of the Sioux Lookout Bombers. In only his second season he took them to a Superior International Junior Hockey League championship and was named the league’s coach of the year.
How you’ll train
The House of Greatness is our Official High Performance Partner, and every Canuck trains there under Director of Performance Nate Mitton, who is the conditioning coach of the Florida Panthers. That is NHL-level strength and conditioning, included.
Who’ll be watching
We host the OJHL Governor’s Showcase at the Gale Centre — all twenty-four teams in front of more than 150 scouts, including NHL Central Scouting, NCAA Division I and III programs, the Canadian Hockey League and U SPORTS. You do not travel to be seen. They come to you.
Every home and away game is broadcast live on FloHockey.tv, so families and recruiters who cannot be in the building still see you play.
What league you’ll play in
The Ontario Junior Hockey League. Twenty-four teams, the largest Junior A league in Canada, and the only Junior A league in the Ontario Hockey Association — the oldest hockey association in the world, founded in 1890 and still the governing body for most junior and senior hockey in the province.
The OJHL is also the biggest of the nine leagues in the Canadian Junior Hockey League, which governs Junior A hockey nationally. The next largest carries thirteen teams. That means a deeper league, a fuller schedule and more nights in front of people who decide where you play next.
It is a league that measures itself on where its players end up. The OJHL has reported more than eighty-seven NCAA, U SPORTS, CHL and professional commitments in a single season, including more than forty-eight NCAA Division I scholarships, and says thirty-eight of its alumni are currently in the National Hockey League — more than any other CJHL league. Win it all and you lift the Frank L. Buckland Trophy and play on toward the Centennial Cup.
Where it leads
The Ontario Junior Hockey League reported more than 135 commitments in 2024-25, including fifty-four to NCAA Division I and twenty-nine to the Ontario Hockey League. Eight Canucks have gone on to the National Hockey League, two of them Stanley Cup winners.
Where you’ll play
The Gale Centre has four NHL-sized pads under one roof, and our attendance is top ten in the league. You’ll play in front of a crowd.
Where you’ll live
Most Junior A teams play in ordinary towns. You’d be playing in Niagara Falls — a city the world travels to see, twenty minutes from St. Catharines and Brock University, ninety minutes from Toronto and across the bridge from western New York. For a player from outside the region, that means a season somewhere you’ll enjoy living and your family will enjoy visiting.
If that sounds like the right fit, here is how to get in front of us.
One
Apply to attend our Main Camp
Main Camp in May is where roster spots are decided. It’s our spring tryout — three days, three refereed games per player, and offers made to the players who earn them.
Two
Apply to attend our Summer Development & Prospect Skates
Our Summer Development & Prospect Skates run on Sunday nights at the Gale Centre. Six sessions, ninety minutes each — forty-five minutes of skill development and forty-five minutes of refereed scrimmage, with Canucks management and staff on the ice.
They’re exactly what the name says. We use them to develop players and identify prospects, and every year training camp invitations go to standouts from those skates. If you want to get on our radar, this is the most direct way to do it.
Three
Come to a game
The simplest thing an interested player can do is come and watch. Get a feel for the building, the crowd, the league and the way we play. Speak to our staff while you’re there — we’re not hard to find, and we’d rather meet you at a game than read about you in an application.
Four
Organize a charity, community, school or team night
If your minor hockey team, school or organization wants a night at the Gale Centre, we’ll help you put it together. Teams get dressing room tours, flag bearers and a mini game at the first intermission. Schools get free admission for staff and students, the choir sings the anthem, and our players visit beforehand to play floor hockey.
It’s a good night out, and it’s a good way for a family to get to know this organization from the inside.
Five
Billet a player
Billet families are part of this organization. They house a player through the season, feed him, look out for him and wait up for him — and most of them stay in touch with him long after he moves on.
For a family already inside junior hockey, it’s the closest view of the game there is.
Six
Sponsor the team
Sponsorship keeps a fifty-five-year-old team on the ice. It funds the free tickets we give to minor hockey players and school children, and it pays for the charity nights we run every season. Packages start at $300.
Seven
Wear the crest
Hoodies, tees, tracksuits and toques, from the only place you can get Canucks gear. Wear it to a game and you’ll spot a dozen others wearing the same thing.
Eight
Volunteer
A junior hockey team runs on people who show up. We’re always looking for national anthem singers, flag bearers, dressing room attendants, broadcast assistants, podcast assistants, and anyone else willing to lend a hand on a game night.
You don’t need experience. You need to want to be around the rink. If that’s you — or your son or daughter — get in touch and tell us what you’d like to do.
