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SHAWNIGAN LAKE — It took a few minutes for Thatcher Demko to navigate the short distance from the ice to the dressing room area on Monday.

Vancouver Canuck fans kept politely asking the goalie to pose for photos and sign autographs and talk for a moment about the team. Demko was “the guy” on the first day of the National Hockey League team’s development camp. And this is only Shawnigan Lake, the bucolic village on Vancouver Island made somewhat famous by the boarding school that bears its name.

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Just wait until Demko gets to Vancouver and the NHL.

“I still get asked about that goal,” Canuck goaltending coach Dan Cloutier said, able to smile after all these years about Nick Lidstrom’s slapshot from centre that skipped past Cloutier and precipitated Vancouver’s collapse against the Detroit Red Wings in the 2002 playoffs.

That’s the Canucks for you, and that’s their market. That could soon be Demko’s world.