Steelheads star players put Brampton on world stage at IIHF World Juniors

Three members of the Brampton Steelheads will try to bring gold medals back to Brampton when they take on the world as part of Team Canada for the 2025 hockey World Junior Championship.

The newly-christened Brampton Steelheads started welcoming hockey fans to the CAA Centre for their inaugural season this year after more than two decades in Mississauga, rising to No. 4 in the OHL central division.

And with this year’s World Junior Championship a little more than a week away, Canadian hockey fans will get to watch three of the Steelhead’s star players in action during the annual tournament that kicks off on Boxing Day in Ottawa.

With 54 points so far this season (21 goals and 33 assists), the Steelheads’ leading scorer and right winger Porter Martone tops the team’s World Junior contributions. A projected top pick in next year’s NHL draft, Martone tallied 71 points in the 2023 season while the team was still based in Mississauga.

Carson Rehkopf, the Steelheads’ second-highest points producer and another right winger, has also been selected to play for Canada when tournament play starts next week. He’s put up 47 points in 27 games, including a hat trick against the Sault. Ste Marie Greyhounds last month.

Rounding out the trio of Steelheads headed to Ottawa is Jack Ivankovic – a Mississauga native, the team’s top goalie and son of netminder Frank Ivankovic, who was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1995.

Jack was selected seventh overall by the Steelheads when the team was still based in Mississauga, and is a top prospect for the 2025 NHL draft.

The Canadians, who will be looking to add to a record 20 gold medals at the annual showcase, were ousted in last year’s quarterfinals thanks to a last-minute loss to Czechia.

The host Canadian team will open Group A at the Canadian Tire Centre, home of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, on Boxing Day against Finland.

The defending champions United States, Latvia and Germany make up the rest of the field.

Ottawa last hosted the world juniors in 2009 when Canada defeated Sweden to secure a record-tying fifth straight gold.

– With files from the Canadian Press