In a career that’s spanned a full decade in minor hockey and five years of junior battles in the WHL as a member of the Prince George Cougars, not once had Chase Witala been cut for stitches.
He almost kept that record intact through to the end of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ prospects camp, which wrapped up July 9 in Niagara Falls, Ont.
Almost.
While playing in the scrimmage on the last day of the camp, Witala was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time when a player got checked while trying to fire a shot. That player lost his balance and his skate blade came up and hit Witala’s mouth and chin, leaving him with a 13-stitch cut.
“It was our last scrimmage with about two minutes left and I got a skate in the face,” said Witala, who played in the Cougars alumni golf tournament Saturday at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club.
“He shot and the d-man pushed him and I was behind him and he sliced me. It was a clean cut and surprisingly didn’t hurt at all. Seven stitches in the chin, two in the upper lip and four in the lower lip. That’s the first stitches I’ve ever got from hockey. It’s part of the game.”
The camp, July 4-9, was Witala’s second chance to rub shoulders with aspiring pros. Last summer he attended the Dallas Stars prospects camp and was invited back for the Stars rookie camp. The Leafs want to get another look at Witala and he plans to attend their rookie camp.
“It was awesome, I had a good experience with them and I enjoyed it a lot,” said Witala, who missed his exit interview while in the hospital getting stitched up.
Witala is looking forward to playing with the other Leafs rookies in a mini-tournament in London, Ont., Sept. 16-18, which also involves the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins.
“They’re happy with what they see in me so I’m going to go back to their rookie tournament in September and it’s another chance to prove what you have,” he said.
“We had some seminars on what the media is like there and it seems pretty crazy. I’m definitely not a guy like Auston Matthews or Mitch Marner. When we left the rink in Niagara the fans go crazy for those guys. They’re an Original Six team and it’s a big-market team. It’s a different city than Prince George, that’s for sure.”
For the rookies gathered at the Leafs’ training facility in Niagara Falls the prospects camp was not a team tryout. It was more a chance for the team to set down some of the ground rules about what is expected of the players and to teach them about how to prepare themselves as pros.
“The education process is much more important than the hockey here in the summer,” said Leafs head coach Mike Babcock, on the Leafs website, mapleleafs.nhl.com. “(Toronto’s development team) educate(s) these guys on how to be good pros, and understand the improvement is in the details of how you live and how you train and how you eat. Those things are important for them. And whether it be the media training, whether it be the mental health training, whether it be just how to handle yourself in the community, those things are important for a pro athlete. That’s what these guys want to be, so we’re trying to help them.”
Witala wrapped a memorable career playing left wing and centre for his hometown Cougars, leading the team with 40 goals and 79 points last season. In 302 regular-season games he scored 120 goals and totaled 239 points, both career records for the Prince George franchise.
He signed an amateur tryout agreement with the Leafs in April, flying to Toronto right after the Cougars were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. He played three games with their AHL farm team, the Toronto Marlies, collecting two assists for his first points as a pro.
“I have an American League contract next year so I’ll be back there,” said Witala. “It was awesome playing with the Marlies at the end of the year. I had fun with them. It’s definitely different from junior, a lot more structured with very few mistakes, but I had a good time. It was an awesome experience.”
Witala has been working out in the weight room at Xconditioning and has been on the ice a few times training with former Cougar Eric Hunter and a group of juniors and ex-juniors. The Cougars and Spruce Kings have invited him to skate with their teams in August.
Ten current Cougars attended NHL team summer prospects camps, including: Tate Olson (Vancouver); Jesse Gabrielle (Boston), Ty Edmonds (San Jose); Sam Ruopp (Columbus); Brad Morrison (New York Rangers); Jansen Harkins (Winnipeg); Josh Anderson, Brogan O’Brien (Colorado), Kody McDonald (Montreal); and Axel Jonsson-Fjallby (Washington).
