When you ask Edmonton Oil Kings’ centre Max Curran, Colorado’s fifth-round draft pick in 2024, if he is going to play for Czechia for the first time in the Christmas U20 World Junior Championship in Minnesota, he offers up a big smile.

“Hope to make it,” said the well-spoken Prague-born Curran, who was the first-ever import player to win the WHL’s scholastic player of the year in the 2024-25 season, averaging a perfect 100 per cent in six advanced-placement courses while in Tri-City before his June trade to the Oil Kings for a multitude of draft picks.

How come he didn’t make last year’s team?

“Not a question for me. I just wasn’t good enough,” said the brutally honest Curran, 19, whose countryman, Oil Kings’ winger Adam Jecho, 19, will be at the U20 for a second time, so it’s old helme

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