Team Canada Red celebrates after a 6-3 win over Team Canada White in the final of the U17 World Hockey Challenge. (Facebook/Hockey Canada)

By Nick Nielsen

2 Raiders win Gold, one wins Silver

McDonald, Cripps, Harvey share thoughts on U17 World Hockey Challenge experience

Nov 10, 2025 | 4:43 PM

For Raiders Head Coach Ryan McDonald, the 2025 U17 World Hockey Challenge represents a full circle moment. It’s his third time winning the championship and in his third different role: first as a player during the 2005 edition of the tournament, second as a player last year, and now as a head coach.

Each year that McDonald has won it, he’s been lucky enough to share it with someone on the Raiders team with Daxon Rudolph and Riley Boychuk last year and Brock Cripps this year. He did it while competing against fellow Raider Ben Harvey, and even in his first year as a player with the Raiders current Athletic Therapist and Equipment Manager Duane ‘Puff’ Bartley who was Team Canada’s trainer that year.

“It was a tremendous experience. Ultimately being able to share it last year with Dax and Chucky (Daxon Rudolph and Riley Boychuk) and being able to share it with Brock (Cripps), Benny (Harvey) was ultimately on the other side, so you feel for him and you take that one hard as well too, cause he’s such a good kid and a tremendous player, but yeah, I absolutely love that under 17 tournament. I’ve won it as a play, I’ve won it as an assistant coach, and now as a head coach. It’s something that is truly special.”

While sharing it with his players and fellow staff has been special, nothing quite compares to that first call back home.

“Whenever you can look at a trophy and see your name engraved on it… you know, I was able to FaceTime my girls after the game and show them my name on the trophy and hear them say, ‘Daddy, that’s your name right there!’, that’s something you’ll never forget.”

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One of the biggest things McDonald has preached as a coach during his time with the Raiders and at the international level has been learning from each experience, whether it’s a win or a loss. That includes himself, and this year his takeaway was how important the small details become when everyone has a common goal.

“For me, it was that our group was so dialed in off-ice staff to the coaching staff to the team itself. Again, our details were just absolutely tremendous and watching these players have the ability to pick stuff up and learn on the fly and just continue to keep executing it and continue to compete at such a high level. Standing behind the bench, there was a lot of players we would make where I would just sit there and be like ‘wow, I admire your courage to take that hit to make a play, or your courage to drive that puck inside the dots offensively to get that chance from six feet around the net and score that hard goal’.”

He added, “For me, the big part was just the players and staff and everyone involved, just how much of a team we were.”

The young Raiders defenceman Brock Cripps shared the gold with McDonald as a part of Team Canada Red, and with 1G-5A in five games at the tournament was named one of the tournament’s all-star defencemen. While the WHL continues to fawn over Cripps’ offensive ability, McDonald said that his defensive play was what made him shine during the tournament.

“Everybody always totes over his offensive ability because it’s mesmerizing and he wows you, but he’s no slouch defensively. Just watching him play big minutes, continue to grow through the tournament, and again, he did a tremendous job whether it was powerplay, penalty kill, or five on five for us.”

The young defenceman himself, Cripps is proud of the effort he was able to put forward during the tournament that earned him his spot on the all star team.

“The experience in general was super good playing against those teams from all across the world. It was pretty fun. I think the team got along together a lot, and yeah, we won the gold. It’s something special, something I looked forward to as a kid and it’s always a kid’s dream to represent your country. So yeah, definitely a cool experience.”

As for Ben Harvey, he finished the tournament with 1G-1A in Team Canada White’s silver medal finish. For McDonald, coaching against one of his own players who we would be standing behind less than a week later was difficult, but he’s proud of the way Harvey handled himself and competed throughout the tournament.

“You have to give him his space because in the end, when we’re there, we were competing against each other. He’s a competitor, and Brock and I are competitors as well. So everybody’s trying to win that game for their group. Again with Ben, I thought he had a fantastic tournament. Scored a big goal for them, played some big minutes. He’s such a two-way player, so from the defensive side he did a tremendous job, and I think in that semi-final game his line really got their team rolling.”

Harvey himself is a little disappointed to have not come home with gold, but he’s still proud of what he put forward and the silver medal around his neck.

“It was obviously a very cool experience and an honour to be a part of Team Canada and wear the jersey, but obviously not the result we wanted.”

While McDonald, Cripps, and Harvey were gone, the Raiders went 3-1 with a win at home over Moose Jaw before heading on the road for wins in Lethbridge and Spokane, and finally the team’s first regulation loss of the year against the Tri-City Americans. McDonald is proud of how his team managed to battle while he was away, but now he’s ready to rejoin the long grind that is the WHL season with the Raiders.

“From the staff, Yawney and Bell did a tremendous job with the guys, and our leadership group, our core, they just continued to keep building and growing and playing our game with our details and our pace. Ultimately, the last game, we knew it (the 15 game point streak) was going to come to an end at some point, so again, you win or you learn. So I’m really looking forward to getting back on the ice with them in practice and continuing to keep building our details and really excited for this game coming up.”

The Raiders have a practice day in Seattle scheduled for Monday, and will continue the U.S. road swing into Everett on Tuesday.

Also, Raiders goaltender Michal Orsulak was named WHL goaltender of the week after his wins in Lethbridge and Spokane where he only gave up three goals in two games.