Dawson Creek and Fort St. John will co-host the 2015 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge this fall, Hockey Canada officials announced Wednesday. It will be the second time the tournament has been hosted in British Columbia.

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It will be held Oct. 30-Nov. 7 and Dawson Creek will host the Gold Medal game at the Encana Events Centre.

The announcement was made to a gathering of media and hockey fans at the Pomeroy Sport Centre in Fort St. John.

Although not an official International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) tournament, the eight-team competition does attract international clubs.

Canada will be represented by three national teams — Black, Red and White — which will be made up of a combination of the 66 best under-17 players from across the country.

They will be joined by five international entries from Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the United States.

Dawson Creek Mayor Dale Bumstead told Alaska Highway News that the city was approached by Hockey Canada about the event, noting that the organization had remembered the city from its unsuccessful bid to host the 2016 IIHF Under-18 Women's World Championship.

“They approached us [for this tournament] but said we would need to partner with another city.”

According to Bumstead, Hockey Canada originally suggested Grande Prairie as a possible hosting partner.

“We said no. If we are going to be partnering with somebody, we’re going to partner with our neighbours in the Peace, Fort St. John,” Bumstead added.

The tournament will be hosted at the North Peace Arena in Fort St. John and the Encana Events Centre in Dawson Creek.

At least one other city was involved in the process before Hockey Canada approached Dawson Creek, Bumstead confirmed. It is as yet unclear what circumstance lead Hockey Canada to approach Dawson Creek about hosting the tournament.

The tournament originated in 1986 as the Quebec Esso Cup, at the time considered the unofficial world championship of midget hockey.

Now, the tournament is the first step in Hockey Canada’s Program of Excellence and is used to identify players capable of moving on to the IIHF Under-18 Men's World Hockey Championship and National Junior Team, which competes at the IIHF World Under-20 Championships held each year around Christmas.

Prior to November 2014, the World U-17 Hockey Challenge was held from December through to early January.

For the first time in its 29-year history, it underwent an overhaul announced November 2013, moving from a ten team tournament to eight.

The changes will take place for the first time during the 2015 tournament hosted by Dawson Creek and Fort St. John.

To adjust for the changes, there were two World U-17 Hockey Challenges in 2014.

The first one began in 2013 and ended in early 2014. The second was held in November.

From now on, the tournament will be hosted each year in November.

Kris Knoblauch, head coach of the Ontario Hockey League's (OHL) Erie Otters will coach Team Canada Red, Jamie Kompon, head coach of the Western Hockey League's (WHL) Portland Winter Hawks will coach Team Canada White and Marco Pietroniro, head coach of the Quebec Major Junior League's (QMJHL) Drakkar de Baie-Comeau, will coach Team Canada Black.

The 2015 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge will bring together the top players in the world born in 1999 or later.

Since the first under-17 tournament in 1986, more than 1,200 NHL draft picks have played in the tournament, including 11 of the last 14 first-overall selections (Ilya Kovalchuk, 2001; Rick Nash, 2002; Marc-André Fleury, 2003; Alexander Ovechkin, 2004; Erik Johnson, 2006; Patrick Kane, 2007; John Tavares, 2009; Taylor Hall, 2010; Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 2011; Nathan MacKinnon, 2013; Aaron Ekblad, 2014).

dcreporter@dcdn.ca