Bo Horvat was not surprised in the least his dad made headlines leading into training camp, telling the world his son would make an excellent choice as the next captain of the Vancouver Canucks.

And if you’ve followed Bo’s career at all, you weren’t surprised either.

Bo and Tim Horvat have the type of father-son relationship most of the rest of us spend our lives daydreaming about.

“My dad’s my No. 1 fan, hands down,” Bo said. “He’s pushed me to be the player I am today. If I need advice about anything to do with hockey, I go to him.

“He’s my backbone. He is going to have my back no matter what.”

Bo’s earliest hockey memories are, of course, practising with his father. Tim invested immeasurable hours into his son’s development as a hockey player and, really as a person too.

Tim essentially built an arena in his basement in their home just outside London, Ontario.

“It was legitimately a hockey rink. He went to a local rink and took all the old arena boards and put them up. He painted the basement exactly like a hockey rink,” Bo said. “There was a big net in there, oh yeah.

“And all you’d hear all day long was bang, bang, bang.”

Oh yes, the sweet sounds of hockey.

It was in this basement where Tim would drop pucks for the Horvat face-off sessions, which have become legendary, forever woven into Bo’s background story.

“Honest to god, ever since novice he was telling me how important face-offs were,” Bo said. “I was like this tall (he places his hand below his hip) and he was telling me about face-offs.

“How many 9-year-olds are being told that?

“That’s exactly why I took pride in face-offs at such a young age.”

Bo’s most precious story is also his parent’s biggest sacrifice.

At 12 years old, they moved their son to Toronto so he could play a higher level of hockey because they believed it would be a great opportunity to grow his game.

They were right.

“I lived with another kid on the team, and obviously went to a totally different school than where I was,” Bo said.

“I moved away from them all year, which couldn’t have been easy for them. My dad knew I could handle it and he knew it could make me better.

“I didn’t know. I remember driving there and — he will tell you this story for days — I remember I was going to move in. We stopped at a service centre in Kitchener on the way.

“I said ‘I can’t do this. I’m going to miss my family. I’m going to miss my friends.’

“He said, ‘Bo, it doesn’t matter. We can go home right now. I’m not going to push you to do something you don’t want to do.

“I said, ‘You know what? I am going to do this. It’s going to be awesome. It will be like having a sleep over every night.'”

THE SCOUT

Tim is very involved with Bo’s game to this day.

“Sometimes, I’m like, ‘OK, dad, I’m playing at the highest level. Quit trying to tell me how to play the game,’ ” Bo said.

“But a lot of the things he says I end up saying, ‘You know what? You’re right. I should try that.’ ”

I asked Bo what Tim’s team would look like if we could make him the head coach of an NHL squad.

“I’m sure if he could have 23 Bo Horvats, he would,” Bo said, laughing.

“He loves watching lots of great players. He loves watching players like Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews.

“He watches their games and he’ll say, ‘This is what they’re doing. It’s awesome. You should try it.’

“He scouts the game and looks for ways to make me better.”

Would he make a good NHL scout?

“I think he would. He knows the game really well and he’s watched it for a long time,” Bo said. “He knows all the kids I used to play against. And he’s watched a ton of juniors.

“He would make a pretty good scout if anyone’s looking for one.”

THE DIET

The offseason’s biggest accomplishment among Canucks belongs to Ben Hutton.

He’s re-invented himself physically and that came through in his testing.

“Everywhere they do a different body fat test. I knew I was at a pretty good level but here they had a different technique than what I was used to back home,” Hutton said.

Often, elite athletes talk about getting their body fat count under 10%.

“I was wondering if I was going to be under that and I was,” Hutton said.

His body fat count was measured at 8.9%.

“Perfect,” he said. “When I heard that final number it felt really, really good.”

You’ve probably already heard about his summer training with Claude Giroux. But a player doesn’t go through a transformation like this without overhauling his diet.

Hutton said he was a regular snacker who would dive into chips and crackers throughout the day.

“At the start of the offseason, I saw a specialist,” he said. “I got saliva, blood work and a pee test. They sent it away for two weeks and I got this specialized protein that has 100 different things, which are to help my specific body.

“Along side that, I went gluten free.”

His normal day?

“I’d have eggs and bacon early. Sometimes a smoothie with a banana on the side. I’d hit the gym. I’d get a protein shake there. I’d go to lunch and have salad with chicken and sweet potato on the side,” Hutton said.

“I’d head home and have a steak and asparagus for dinner.”

That actually sounds like a great day of eating.

“The biggest thing for me was to stop that snacking. That was tough,” Hutton said. “Crackers were out. Bananas, berries and carrots were in. I got huge into carrots.”

It shows.

THE LINE

One of Green’s quality moves during training camp was lining EP with Baertschi and Goldy.

“Look at it, three Europeans on the same line and they all think the game the same way,” Thomas Gradin said, admiring their play.

That’s not entirely accurate. There’s no one who thinks the game quite like EP.

I asked Gradin to weigh in on the debate about whether EP should be a centre or a winger. He said:

“This doesn’t matter. He will go where he wants to go.”

One of the things teams in Sweden found is EP was nearly impossible to scout because no one knew where he is going to be on the ice.

Sometimes he played the wing much like you’d expect a winger to do. But often, he would cut through the middle of the ice and rove, playing through the middle much like a centre.

I asked him if he actually knows where he’s going to go on the ice.

“I don’t,” he said. “It’s instincts. My instincts. I always try to be unpredictable every time I’m on the ice. When I am, I feel like I get more space on the ice, and I create more chances.”

THE MEMORY

Gradin said he can remember training camps where they told him to do as little with the puck as possible.

“They would tell me not to hang on to the puck, because if I did, I’d get killed,” Gradin said.

My oh my, the game has changed.

THE STRENGTH

Is EP strong enough for the NHL?

“He’s not,” Gradin said. “But he’s good enough.”

THE POSITION

Green told Pettersson early in the summer that he was going to be at centre to start.

“When you play wing, you can focus more on offence,” Pettersson said. “I like both.

“I think I play wing differently than most. But when I’m in the offensive zone, trying to create chances, it doesn’t matter to me if I’m wing or centre.”

THE PUKE

Lost in Virtanen’s story about wiping out in Stecher’s vomit during training camp’s longest bag skate, is that he was torching his group.

Virtanen is obviously an explosive skater and it would have interesting to see how many times in a row he could have led his group before slowing down.

As for Stecher, he’s famous for pushing himself in training until he barfs.

He pretty much pukes every day.

THE TWEET

I asked Virtanen how he heard about the tweet from a person who suggested he had been out in Vancouver partying the night before.

“My mom showed it to me,” he said. “She said, ‘Look at this idiot.'”

THE SHOT

Don’t sleep on Virtanen’s shot.

THE ROLLER HOCKEY

The most fun Virtanen had this summer was playing roller hockey with his brother Stefan.

“I went to the NARCh Pro Finals and I was the top scorer. No big deal,” Virtanen said, laughing at his humble brag. ”

“I scored six goals in the semi-finals.

“My brother loves roller and I went down last second. A week before the tournament, he said: ‘We need someone to score goals.'”

Virtanen grew up playing roller hockey and still loves the game and decided to help his brother’s team out.

“We lost in the final. We got smacked,” Virtanen said. ‘They’re rated the No. 1 team in North America and we tied them in the round robin. My brother scored with one second left. We were so pumped.

“In the finals, they knew [my teammates] wanted to get the puck to me and they just shut me down. They had two guys on me the whole game.

“I was pretty pissed about that actually.”

THE COMPLIMENT

In EP, Gradin sees a player who is more versatile than Henrik Sedin.

“Henrik played the game at one speed. Pettersson can play the game low like that but he can pick up the tempo and play much faster when he needs to,” Gradin said.

“He’s more versatile than Henrik was in that sense and he can finish in a way that Henrik couldn’t.”

THE BAERTSCHI SHOT

Baertschi is low-key at the top among candidates to play with EP.

In his past three seasons with the Canucks, he has a 15.5% shooting percentage. It’s tied for 14th in the NHL among those who have played at least 100 games.

He has not done it with a great shot. He has done it with instincts, hockey sense and mental preparation.

“I sure don’t have a bomb,” Baertschi said, laughing.

“I have scored a few goals where I’ve just out-played the goalie. I shot it in the spot he didn’t expect it.

“I’ve learned to understand when to take my time, settle down the puck and find the right moment to let it go.

“It happens so fast.

“I remember one goal I scored against L.A. I got a cross-ice pass, and when it hit my stick, I could see Quick coming over.

“He was coming over so fast, so I thought, Hey, why don’t I wait ’til he slides right past me.

“Then I shot far side even though most guys would shoot short side. I just waited and shot right.

“That kind of play is something I’ve adapted to my game and it’s helped me for sure.”

THE MUSCLES

You happen to see this pic?

Boeser said he put on nine pounds of weight this summer and did not increase his body fat percentage.

He’s now at 208 pounds. For reference, he was at 191 pounds when he was drafted.

In the screen grab, he looks bigger than Bo Horvat, who is not small. Horvat weighed in at 214 pounds here.

“I saw that picture, maybe it’s because my shirt is tighter,” Boeser said.

He said he didn’t really lose much time from training this summer recovering from back and wrist procedure. By mid-July, he was ready for the start of Da Beauty League.

In his first game, he scored a hat trick. Vancouver was lit.

“I was shocked by the big reaction,” Boeser said. “I didn’t know that many people in Vancouver followed Da Beauty League.

“I had only shot a couple times before that game, and after it I was like, ‘Well, that felt good. I’m ready to go.’

“It felt good the whole time and my wrist wasn’t bothering me at all.”

What about that surgically repaired wrist?

“It feels better than it has in a really long time. It feels super strong,” Boeser said.

Boeser with a “super strong” wrist?

Look out, NHL.

(Top photo: Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)