{"id":21582,"date":"2018-09-13T11:56:14","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T15:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21582"},"modified":"2018-09-13T11:56:14","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T15:56:14","slug":"canadiens-camp-a-surreal-moment-for-ex-saint-hillis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/canadiens-camp-a-surreal-moment-for-ex-saint-hillis\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens camp a \u201csurreal\u201d moment for ex-Saint Hillis"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just one day before his eighteenth birthday, Cameron Hillis\u2019 NHL journey began as a member of the Montreal Canadiens.
\nLast weekend, the ex-York-Simcoe Express and St. Andrew\u2019s College Saints forward stepped into action in the bleu, blanc, et rouge for the first time at the Canadiens\u2019 rookie camp.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s obviously a very storied organization,\u201d said Hillis. \u201cTo be able to spend this journey with my friends and family has been surreal.\u201d
\nDrafted in the third round, 66th overall in last June\u2019s NHL Entry Draft, Hillis\u2019 rise up the Canadiens\u2019 depth charts has been meteoric in his few months with the club: a gamble that has paid off since changing his path three years prior.
\nDuring the midpoint of the 2015-16 Express season, Hillis had committed to a scholarship at Providence College in the NCAA\u2019s top division, a common route these days for elite Canadian athletes.
\nIt was after putting up an astonishing 72 points in just 33 games with the Minor Midget AAA Express that he put his academic goals on hold to follow his dream, going the traditional route in joining the Guelph Storm of the OHL.
\nA highly-successful following season with the St. Andrew\u2019s College Saints in Aurora, leading the varsity program in scoring, landed him a full-time role with the Storm.
\nFifty-nine points in sixty games as a seventeen-year old was all Montreal needed to see to put a jersey on the 5\u201910\u201d centreman, whose first taste of professional hockey came at last weekend\u2019s rookie tournament, an annual parade of newcomers between the Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Ottawa Senators.
\nWhile the Habs bitterly fell to their rivals in both matchups, Hillis said he is hoping to impress Canadiens brass as a \u201ccomplete player.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ve got to work on my personal game myself, and everything else will take care of itself,\u201d said Hillis. \u201cHeading back to Guelph for a really strong year this year and working on my complete game, getting better in the d-zone and working on my offensive side too, just becoming that complete player that can really help the Habs out in the future.\u201d
\nDrafted as a somewhat undersized centre in June, Hillis has been putting in work at his alma mater of St. Andrew\u2019s College with ex-NHLer Gary Roberts over the summer to bulk up: something he thinks will help him crack the big club\u2019s lineup sooner than later.
\n\u201cI carpool into Aurora every day with a couple of guys, working out with (Steve) Stamkos, (Chris) Tierney, (Mike) Smith\u2026you see the work those guys put in and they\u2019re always the first ones in the gym. It\u2019s something I noticed right away, and I\u2019m just kind of taking little tidbits from them, anything I can learn from them.\u201d
\nFor the Oshawa native who spent his youth as a member of the Express, being on the other side of ice from the Maple Leafs\u2019 blue and white was a rather odd one for Hillis.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s who I grew up rooting for, to be honest,\u201d said Hillis, who added that he \u201cquickly converted to Montreal.\u201d
\n\u201cMy parents have gone over as well.\u201d
\nFor Hillis, and assumedly many other rookie NHLers, it was walking into the dressing room for the first time on Friday that marked the final step in his transition into a Montreal Canadien.
\n\u201cJust walking into the dressing room and seeing my jersey there, you almost kind of have to pinch yourself. It\u2019s finally happening, and you\u2019re able to put that jersey on\u2026it comes with a lot of pride, so I think that putting on that jersey on Friday night and playing that first game was pretty special for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just one day before his eighteenth birthday, Cameron Hillis\u2019 NHL journey began as a member of the Montreal Canadiens.
\nLast weekend, the ex-York-Simcoe Express and St. Andrew\u2019s College Saints forward stepped into action in the bleu, blanc, et rouge for the first time at the Canadiens\u2019 rookie camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5C6","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 02:26:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}