After making a 19-hour drive from their native Victoria, Brock Cripps and his older brother Boston spent a few more days together in Prince Albert at the Raiders’ training camp.
What’s more, the British Columbia siblings were also intrasquad teammates as part of Team Modano’s defence.
After an eventful summer that saw Brock, 17, earn gold with Team Canada at the Hlinka-Gretzky under-18 championship in Edmonton, the Raiders’ young gun marked another hockey highlight in welcoming his big brother to P.A. and the team’s WHL camp.
“Yeah, it’s definitely a pretty cool experience,” Brock said during last weekend’s workouts. “Family means a lot to me, so having my brother here is pretty special. I’m just cheering him on and giving him confidence in this camp, and hoping he excels. I think he’s done a great job. It’s pretty special to have him beside me.”
As previously planned, the 18-year-old Boston has since joined the Nipawin Hawks for their Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League training camp this week. He signed with the Hawks in June, after playing in the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League last season with the Saanich Predators and Nanaimo Buccaneers, respectively.
Boston is poised to spend this winter in Nipawin, just an hour-and-a-half drive from Prince Albert, where NHL draft prospect Brock is going into his sophomore season with the Raiders.
“Yeah, it’s obviously great being close to my bro,” Boston said. “We get to see each other a few times, probably, throughout the year. It would be great.”
Brock was just 16 years old when he broke into the WHL, living with billets in Prince Albert and far from his family back home in Victoria. Now, he has a sibling residing just up the Saskatchewan highway.
“Yeah, having him in Nipawin, it’s pretty nice,” Brock said. “Having family pretty close to you, because we’re from all the way back in B.C., so I don’t get to see them a lot. But having someone up here kind of with me — an hour-and-a-half away is not too far — is pretty nice.
“We’re pretty tight, I would say. Our whole family is really tight. But just having him up there, we’ll be able to visit each other every once in a while, hopefully. Yeah, it should be good.”
The brothers bonded even more during a long summer drive from B.C. to Hockey Town North, where Brock and the Raiders went all the way to the WHL final last May before falling to the Everett Silvertips.
“My first time driving to Saskatchewan,” Boston said about the brothers’ August journey. “It’s quite a long drive to get up here. We survived, though. It wasn’t too bad. I think it was 19 hours, I would say. So, yeah, quite the trek.”
Before he extended his travels a little farther, to Nipawin, Boston soaked up the major junior atmosphere in the Art Hauser Centre, the backdrop for Brock’s revealing rookie year in the WHL.
“It’s been great,” Boston said about his Raiders’ camp experience. “I’ve really enjoyed my time here. It’s been awesome. It’s good to compete with these guys. It’s been pretty solid.”
The solidly built Boston — about six-foot-one and 200 pounds — is the middle child and the biggest of the three Cripps brothers. He’s ready to put his hockey tools to work as part of Nipawin’s defence.
“I think I’ve got a good stick,” Boston said. “I know how to play off the rush, and just play solidly, know how to intercept passes, get in lanes, stuff like that.”
Brady, the eldest of the Cripps boys, also played hockey in his younger years, before turning to soccer at age 14. He’s now in the work world.
“My older brother is a good influence for me,” Boston said. “He taught me the ways, I guess you could say. But, yeah, he’s a great influence for me, from my younger ages.”
Along with the three brothers and their parents, the Cripps family members include their dog.
Golden summer for Raiders’ trio
The entire Cripps clan was delighted in early August when Brock and Team Canada — including Raiders forward Ben Harvey and coach Ryan McDonald — defeated the U.S. in the gold-medal game of the Hlinka-Gretzky tournament.
“Yeah, I’m definitely going to remember that tournament for my whole life,” Brock said. “It was a really fun experience. Winning a gold medal is not something you get to do every day. Just trying to take it all in.”
He described it as that much more special for the Canadians because their victory came against the rival Americans.
“It’s always awesome, beating the Americans, especially in the fashion that we did — an 8-1 game — so it was nice to beat them.”
TSN analyst Craig Button was effusive in his praise of Cripps during the Hlinka-Gretzky coverage. With six points in five games, Cripps was a standout. His exceptional play didn’t surprise Prince Albert coach McDonald, one of Canada’s assistant coaches.
“Brock is a tremendous hockey player,” McDonald said. “He’s a competitor. He plays both sides of the puck extremely well. He’s very offensively gifted, has tremendous deception. On the defensive side, he has a tremendous stick, he anticipates well, closes hard, and his hockey IQ is extremely high.
“Under-18s, he did a tremendous job against the best players across the world at his age group.”
Cripps was happy to share the international experience with a pair of fellow Raiders in Harvey and McDonald.
“Ben took on a role that he was kind of used to last year on our Raiders team — that fourth or third-line guy — and he did well at that,” Cripps said about Harvey. “He really did his job out there. He was never complaining, either. He just buried his head and went to work. I think he did a very good job of that. He comes out with a gold medal, as well, so the team had a good accomplishment and he was a big part of it.”
Likewise for McDonald, who also coached at the world under-17 level when he and Cripps previously won gold with Canada Red.
“Yeah, that was pretty cool, to be able to share those experiences with him,” Cripps said. “He’s an awesome coach. He’s really good at his job. I’m very appreciative for what he’s done. I’m looking forward to this year.”
Cripps reported to the Raiders’ training camp at five-foot-11 and 168 pounds.
“I’m just trying to put more weight on — 170 was kind of my goal coming into this season, and I got pretty close to that. It was hard with the Hockey Canada tournament, because that kind of lost me a few pounds. Just trying to get back up there to 170.”
