98 born tearing up Peewee Hockey

We haven't begun the process of scouting the 1998 born class yet until the Bantam Draft in May is complete. However, on the "99 turns 50" on sportsnet tonight they briefly mentioned a player making noise in Medicine Hat and could be someone to watch. Here is the story that was written on Jaeger White from the Medicine Hat News today:

The play shapes up as if somebody watched The Mighty Ducks one too many times.

A skater, bigger than most on the ice, takes the puck in his own zone. His teammates trail behind, almost in a V-shape. The opposition knows what's coming, and try to hold their positions on the ice.

He swoops in over the blue line, swings the puck wide right, then wide left, then wide right again, each time leaving a defender in his wake.

Already near the goal, he makes one more move, falling down, and tucks the puck in behind the goaltender.

It's a highlight reel play. What's crazier is that the kid who pulls it off is 12 years old.

Medicine Hat's Jaeger White has scored plenty of goals this way in a record season in peewee AA with the Sports Connection Venom. He currently has 109 goals and 20 assists in 25 league games, eclipsing the South Central Alberta Hockey League mark of 97 goals set a few years ago by current Portland Winterhawks forward Ty Rattie.

Oh, and this goal — scored during an 11-7 provincial playoff game win over Airdrie Tuesday — doesn't even count.

"That's his 10th disallowed goal this season," White's coach, Greg Thompson, will say after the game. "The referees are usually so far behind him they don't see it go in."

Indeed, the officials meet, then signal no goal. No matter. Less than a minute later White scores again — his first of five goals on the night as the Venom advance to the second round of playdowns.

Most of the goals feature White breaking in with blazing speed, then putting a move on a helpless goaltender. On one he roofs a backhand. On another he unleashes a quick slapshot. Ping! You might blink, but the sound of the puck hitting iron, followed by a cheer from fans indicates he's just done it again.

"Some teams, they do the line matching and the shadowing, but it doesn't really matter. All teams have some guys that can keep up with me," says White, who had 10 goals and three assists in a 13-3 league win last Friday. "I just go out there and try and do my best."

There aren't many 12-year-olds who stand 5-foot-7, but Thompson knows size is only part of the package with his star player. He's got uncles who scout for hockey teams and an older brother — Torrin — who's a first-round WHL draft pick of the Moose Jaw Warriors. And skill to burn.

"The talent does come easy to him, but at the same time he's really worked hard this year at completing his whole game," said Thompson.

"He really likes to carry the puck. When he wants to he'll control the play."

That talent was also honed in his uncle's garage, where he still likes to hang out with Torrin and other friends.

They'll play for hours on end, his dad says.

"The pond for those two is their uncle Darren's garage, and honestly I think it's why they both have the scoring skills they do," says Terry White. "They've spent hours and hours in uncle Darren's garage, sniping goals."

Terry moved Torrin to Airdrie a couple years ago, where he played bantam AAA. He's now in midget AAA with the Strathmore-based UFA Bisons and is a Alberta Midget Hockey League all-star.

Coincidentally, Ty Rattie is from Airdrie, and heard about Jaeger's run at his record.

Rattie contacted Jaeger through Facebook and the two chatted this past weekend.

"If someone would have told me I'd be breaking a record I wouldn't have believed them," Jaeger says, clearly a bit surprised by all of the attention he's getting. "My uncles always push me, tell me to keep working and remember where I want to get to."

He could look up the early scoring exploits of other hockey stars, like Sydney Crosby (200 or so points in around 70 games in peewee) or Wayne Gretzky (more than 300 points a year in peewee, but no definitive number of games). He'd rather play the video game NHL 11, preferably as Medicine Hat Tigers forward Emerson Etem or Tampa Bay Lightning sniper Steven Stamkos.

Staying grounded is critically important.

"I kind of like to focus on what's going on right now," he says. "I've been trying to skate like Etem, I don't know how he does it. I always watch to see how they do it."

The question people have for Jaeger, however, is how he's doing it. There are still five games left in the regular season.

"Amazing hand-eye," says Thompson. "Some of the stuff he does, the guy in the penalty box looked at me and went 'wow. I wish I could shoot like that.'"