The super-popular fan-friendly NHL prospects tournament will not happen in Penticton in 2025. Canucks’ prospects will travel to Seattle for a two-game set against the Kraken’s future stars next September
The Canucks announced Tuesday that the annual prospects event at the South Okanagan Events Centre in Penticton won’t happen in 2025. Instead the Canucks’ prospects will travel to Seattle for a two-game set against the Kraken’s future stars next September.
Not having the tournament could be a big disappointment for Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford, who has positively glowed each year he’s led his squad to the Okanagan. He’s a fan of the facility, first of all, which features two practice rinks, extensive off-ice training facilities and a well-rated convention centre.
He’s also a fan of the locale itself, which allows for plenty of hockey-man-friendly downtime, be it golf or wine tours.
He went on to compliment the organizing committee and the community as a whole.
“The staff at the Okanagan Events Centre, the fans who attended the games, and the local hockey community all contributed to the great success of these events,” he said.
Given the Kraken are playing the Canucks, it’s obviously not them who were unavailable, so it’s one of the Alberta teams. The Flames are in a semi-rebuild and are stacking up prospects while the Oilers are shooting for the Stanley Cup and thus have one of the weakest prospect pools in the NHL, so the states of their prospect pools stand out.
The Canucks and SOEC organizers are hopeful that the tournament will return in 2026, just as it did in 2022. They will be hoping the hiatus is shorter than it was last time, when four years went by without a visit by the NHL to Penticton.
The Canucks haven’t yet confirmed where 2025 training camp will be, but Postmedia understands talks are still continuing about the possibility of returning to the SOEC, where main camp was also held last September.