Jordan Challis: New Zealand’s answer to Sidney Crosby?

OK, rivalling Sidney Crosby is probably a longshot. But playing versus men at age 15 in a national league is an achievement, even if it’s in New Zealand. Not to mention being a native-trained top prospect for national teams in multiple age groups.

So nice work, Jordan Challis (who’s also a former member of the Markham Waxers, incidentally). Times Newspapers of New Zealand has the full story today.

In case you’re curious, the Kiwis currently sit 39th in the IIHF World Rankings, and NHL.com’s Bill Meltzer provided a great overview of the New Zealand Ice Hockey League last month.

If hockey continues to grow as it has since the NZIHL’s 2005 debut, at least New Zealand won’t suffer any more defeats as lopsided as the 58-0 pounding Australia administered in a March 15, 1987 game in Perth. (That result got the New Zealanders into the Guinness Book of World Records for the biggest margin of defeat in an IIHF World Championship game–in what was then known as the D Pool. Unbelievably, they still won the bronze medal that year.)