Well, we’ve got our first prospect tournament try-out named via the Cape Breton Post’s Jeremy Fraser, listing the QMJHL’s Cape Breton Screaming Eagles’ notable training camp roster additions and omissions:
Czech Republic product Ivan Ivan remains on the roster as an overage player for the time being and will attend the Detroit Red Wings training camp next month. Zachary Gravel, Samuel Johnston and Romain Rodzinski are the other overage players.
So now we know that the Red Wings have invited 2022 Czech World Junior Championship participant in Ivan Ivan Ivan (his real name), a 20-year-old who’s 5’11” and 172 pounds, per EliteProspects.
Ivan only posted 1 point in 7 games for the Czechs at the World Juniors, but he’s coming off a 65-points-in-65-games season (31 goals and 34 assists) for Cape Breton this past year (with an ugly -52 on a struggling team). His father Marek was a long-time European pro at various levels of competition.
Anyway, Ivan has been passed over in the draft twice, but his name caught on among fans during the summertime World Juniors: you can read more about him at the Sporting News or USA Today’s For the Win blog, as well as this Tweet from TSN’s BarDown blog:
Do you remember Ivan Ivan?
— Elite Prospects (@eliteprospects) August 9, 2022
Ivan is representing Czechia 🇨🇿 at the 2022 World Juniors and explains the reason behind his unique name!@narodnitym | @CBEHockey | #WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/1bHf0TBIAQ
I don’t mean to sound flippant, but this is the same case as last year’s most name-worthy try-out, T-Bone Codd, who’s still playing for the Saginaw Spirit of the OHL: his name is great and all, but it’s his play that will determine whether the Wings are intrigued by Ivan, who’s still eligible for the 2023 NHL draft.
