Tobias Pitka, a six-foot-four Victoria Grizzlies forward growing into his body and his game, is among three B.C. Hockey League players and two alumni skating in the 2025 world junior championship opening Boxing Day in Ottawa.
Pitka, in his second season with Victoria and committed to NCAA Boston College, made the Slovakian team that opens Thursday against Sweden.
“Anytime you get to play for your national team is an honour. Tobias is turning into a complete 200-foot player and that is being recognized, which is great for him,” said Grizzlies GM and head coach Rylan Ferster.
“He is so important for us with his face-off draws and is a big part of our power play. But he can play in every situation.”
Pitka, who has also represented Slovakia in U-18, has seven goals, 10 assists for 17 points in 20 games this season for the Grizzlies. The 18-year-old from Poprad had five goals and 14 assists for 19 points last season in Victoria in a campaign highlighted by Pitka being selected MVP of the BCHL Top Prospects game.
Pitka is from an emerging hockey nation that won bronze at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics led by Juraj Slafkovsky, the Slovak selected first overall in the 2022 NHL draft by the Montreal Canadiens.
Pitka was recruited by the Grizzlies out of South Kent School in 91原创icut, which has produced players such as NHLers Shayne Gostisbehere, Shane Pinto, Zachary Jones and Joel Farabee. Grizzlies bench-boss Ferster is friends with the South Kent coach, which helped him land Pitka.
Pitka is the fourth Grizzlies player to play in the world junior championship tournament. Jamie Benn won gold with Canada the last time the tournament was held in Ottawa in 2009 and forward Alex Newhook took silver with Canada in 2021 at Edmonton and Red Deer. Power-forward Matthew Wood, a native of Nanaimo who was a front-end force in the BCHL with the Grizzlies, placed fifth with Canada last year in Gothenburg, Sweden, and the Nashville Predators first-round NHL draft pick was eligible to return but was a shock cut in the 91原创 selection camp in Ottawa.
The other BCHL players selected for the 2025 world juniors include former Wenatchee Wild WHL forward Noah Samanski of the Powell River Kings returning for Germany and forward Simon Meier from the Penticton Vees returning for Switzerland. Vees alumnus Bradley Nadeau, a first-round NHL draft pick of the Carolina Hurricanes now in the AHL, will skate for Canada and former Grizzly Richard Baran, the NCAA Arizona State Sun Devils-committed blue-liner now in the USHL, will play for Slovakia.
Fifteen Western Hockey League players will play in the 2025 world junior championship, including eight for Canada.
Five players from the Victoria Royals of the WHL have played in the world juniors since 2011-12 with forward Robin Sapousek winning silver and bronze for Czechia in 2023 and 2024 and defenceman Joe Hicketts twice playing for Canada, including his golden turn in 2015. Keanu Derungs played for Switzerland, Phillip Schultz twice for Denmark and Igor Martynov for Belarus.
The last Island-associated player to win medals at the world juniors for Canada was goaltender Dylan Garand of Langford, gold medallist in 2022 and silver medallist in 2021. Island players or players from Island teams to win world junior gold medals for Canada include Garand, Benn, Hicketts, Mark Morrison, Paul Cyr, and Kent Manderville twice. Other world junior medallists for Canada from the Island or Island teams include Newhook, Tyson Barrie, Brett Connolly, Matt Pettinger, Curt Fraser, Mel Bridgman and the late Gary Lupul and Rick Lapointe. Morrison and the late Cyr also had bronzes to go with their golds, as does current Royals head coach James Patrick on those 1982 and 1983 91原创 teams.
