{"id":28646,"date":"2021-02-04T13:44:22","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T18:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=28646"},"modified":"2021-02-04T13:44:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T18:44:28","slug":"king-city-boys-cracked-auroras-junior-a-club-in-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/king-city-boys-cracked-auroras-junior-a-club-in-style\/","title":{"rendered":"King City boys cracked Aurora\u2019s Junior A club in style"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

King City defencemen Evan Roccatani and Stefan Lakoseljac were walk-ons in the Aurora Tigers training camp and, in a rare setting, have cracked the roster for this upcoming season with the club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of guys have commitments before they come to camp,\u201d head coach Jim Wells, Jr., said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just like an NHLer they have a contract right. These guys both came on as walk-ons essentially, and made their team in camp.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wells went on to add the first thing that stuck out to him was their respective work ethics. They exemplified both in video, dry land and on-ice, integrity and consistency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakoseljac constantly asked for feedback and both made it very clear how bad they wanted to be an Aurora Tiger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to play for the Tigers, ever since minor hockey,\u201d Lakoseljac said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always been a great hockey club, and I have so much respect for the organization, the management the coaching staff and everyone associated with the team. I also love how the team is always doing amazing things in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work ethic shown by these players was remarkable. They proved their worth by holding their play accountable and continuing to show improvement with every shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince I first arrived on the scene for tryouts, I knew that I had to be the hardest working player on the ice,\u201d Roccatani said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew if I did this it would give me a better chance to get noticed. Another thing that I noticed was that in the locker room everyone is respectful. It looked like a great atmosphere to be around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Roccatani and Lakoseljac say they couldn\u2019t be more pleased to have reached the Junior A level. Both have wanted this for some time and knew the Tigers were the best fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakoseljac got his first taste of Junior A hockey back in 2017-18 in midget, with the York Simcoe Express U-18 AAA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He came on for one game with the Stouffville Spirit and said the game was fast and the players were bigger and stronger back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then he\u2019s come a long way. Following an 18-point season in 42 games played with the Port Hope Panthers in the PJCHL last year, Lakoseljac knows who he is now and what he will bring to the roster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a fast, high energy, aggressive player, and I have a great first pass. We have a great group of guys, lots of talent, and I look forward to seeing what we can do as a team,\u201d Lakoseljac said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roccatani has also had his eye on Junior A hockey for quite some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following a 10-point season with the Toronto Nationals and a Div. 1 YRAA championship with his high school team, the King City Lions, Roccatani knows what\u2019s at stake and believes this year, the Aurora Tigers will be taking everyone by surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe team has made big strides this past year. I can see how good the team is just from tryouts and from a few practices. I think we are going to catch a lot of teams by surprise this season,\u201d Roccatani said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In accordance with provisions set by Public Health and the Provincial government, there is no telling when the season will officially begin. But, when it does, these players couldn\u2019t be more excited to get on to the ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Robert Belardi<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

King City defencemen Evan Roccatani and Stefan Lakoseljac were walk-ons in the Aurora Tigers training camp and, in a rare setting, have cracked the roster for this upcoming season with the club. \u201cA lot of guys have commitments before they come to camp,\u201d head coach Jim Wells, Jr., said. \u201cIt\u2019s just like an NHLer they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28646","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\/p3D2k4-7s2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 14:58:11","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\/28646","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=28646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}