Coquitlam’s Dante Fabbro will get a sixth chance to pull on a Team Canada jersey.
This time, the 20-year-old defenceman for the Nashville Predators will be competing with NHL players at the IIHF World Hockey Championships, Slovakia. He was selected on Monday to be amongst the team's first 22 players that will begin play in the tournament May 10 with a game against Finland.
Not bad, considering Fabbro’s played only 10 professional games since he signed his entry-level contract March 27 with the team that selected him 17th overall in the 2016 NHL entry draft.
Fabbro made his NHL debut three days later, partnered on the Predators’ blue line with former Vancouver Canuck Dan Hamhuis. He got three shots on net, blocked three shots and recorded one hit in 16:12 of ice time.
Fabbro scored his first NHL goal April 6, in a game against the Chicago Blackhawks, on a wrist shot that beat ‘hawks goalie Cam Ward high on his glove side. He recorded his first assist in the third game of the Predators’ playoff series agains the Dallas Stars that his team ultimately lost, four games to two.
Fabbro has represented Canada in international hockey competitions five times previously, including Canada’s gold medal win at the 2018 World Junior Hockey Championships. He also helped the juniors win a silver medal at the 2017 tournament and he wore the red-and-white at the IIHF U-18 world championship, the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, and the World U-17 Challenge Cup.
After he was drafted by the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League, Fabbro opted to join the BC Hockey League where played two full seasons with the Penticton Vees before attending Boston University for three seasons. He was selected to the Hockey East second all-star team in his sophomore and junior years. He played his minor hockey at the Burnaby Winter Club.
Fabbro will be joined on Team Canada by another Burnaby Winter Club grad, Kyle Turris, who led the Burnaby Express to a Royal Bank Cup national junior A hockey championship in 2006, during the team’s six-season hiatus from Coquitlam.
