Jonathon Brodie – Recorder & Times
Curran Gilmour never thought of it before, but he’ll happily accept the comparison.
The Brockville Braves ninth round pick checked out The Recorder and Times article to see team scout Dan Armstrong’s breakdown of each prospect picked by the Jr. A club in the bantam draft.
What Gilmour got was a nice surprise with the Braves director of player personnel comparing the 14-year-old and his potential to the team’s captain Andrew Jarvis.
“Those are big shoes to fill,” Gilmour said. “Jarvis is a great player, he’s a leader and hearing those things about me is just really great.”
Walking the same path as Jarvis is one most CCHL players would want to take. He joined the Braves as a full-time player in 2014-15 seeing little ice time and worked his way up to being the team’s captain over the course of three seasons.
Gilmour had never even thought about comparing himself to Jarvis, but he happily admits his confidence grows knowing other people – particularly someone who likely scouted Jarvis when he was picked in the 2012 CCHL Draft – are seeing the similarities between himself and the veteran Braves player.
For that matter, Gilmour wasn’t even necessarily expecting to get picked by the Braves at all. He wasn’t keeping a close eye on the recent bantam draft, held April 10. In fact, he wasn’t home at all when the selection process was taking place. Instead, he was watching a movie when he got a call from Armstrong at about 8:30 p.m. letting him know he had been taken by a team he’s grown up watching with his grandparents at the Memorial Centre.
“I was surprised. I wasn’t expecting a call from him,” Gilmour said. “I was, obviously, hoping someone would call me and I was glad (Armstrong) did.”
Gilmour considers himself an offensive defenceman, scoring 20 goals in 59 regular season games with the Rideau St. Lawrence Kings at the bantam level the last two years.
The transition to jump off the blue line might have been a natural instinct for him.
Three seasons ago Gilmour was playing forward, but was forced to go to the back-end after his Kings team suffered injuries and then, “it just stuck,” Gilmour said.
“It was more exciting, the rush of the game,” added the Seaway District High School student. “You rely on yourself a lot more than on forward.”
Jarvis has always had some grit to his game. He crashes into his opponents almost as much as he helps bang the puck into the net, garnering 77 points the previous two CCHL seasons.
Now that the comparison has been made between himself and Jarvis, Gilmour said he thinks he should curb his game a bit to add a more physical element to it.
“I’ve watched (Jarvis) multiple times and that’s the way he plays and if that’s how (the Braves) see me then I should probably do that,” he said.
Gilmour is from the small town of Iroquois where just about everyone, including people in other nearby small towns, know just about everyone. Case in point, Jarvis, who lives about 10 minutes away from Iroquois in Morrisburg, messaged Gilmour after reading the bantam draft breakdown and said, “I guess we’re the same person now.”
In the past Jarvis has given Gilmour valued advice. The tips didn’t include playing more like him or telling him to throw his weight around as much as possible. What Jarvis has pushed to Gilmour is really the aspect that has made him a valued asset to the Jr. A team, telling his younger counterpart the Braves are, “always looking for leaders, so be that guy,” Gilmour said.
Gilmour has the keys and tools to Jarvis’success, now he just has to use it.
Original Article at Recorder.ca
