“Hunter called me really early in the morning and I had just woken up. He said there was a team that was gonna bring me out to the Q so I said ‘sure - if it’s going to get me a better look to go to the NCAA then let’s do it’,” McNeil told APX reporter Sydney Wolf. “I kind of just packed my bags, said thank you to my billets, drove my car back to Vancouver then flew to Montreal and eventually drove to Shawinigan.”

It was a whirlwind of a day or two for the power forward, who had only competed for teams in British Columbia prior to his acquisition to the Shawinigan Cataractes. The 18-year-old grew up in Delta, which is located just outside of Vancouver, and competed for the local Delta Hockey Academy before spending a year and a half with the Prince George Spruce Kings of the BCHL.

McNeil wasn’t originally planning on playing major-junior in Canada, but after the rule was changed that those athletes would keep their eligibility for the NCAA, then things started to become a possibility. In fact, plenty of his other teammates in Prince George and around the BCHL also took a similar route and eventually wound up in the QMJHL too.

The skater from Delta arrived in Shawinigan, not knowing a lick of French, but he was able to adapt to the level of play in major-junior fairly quickly, even though there were a few obvious differences between the Q and the BCHL.

“I think, with the skill level, there’s a huge gap. I didn’t think there would be that much of a difference [between the Q and the BCHL] but it’s a lot faster,” he said. “Obviously, my role didn’t change much as a big power forward, I was just hitting guys out there and doing the same thing [as he did in Prince George]. I'd say it’s maybe a little bit softer [in the Q]. It’s just so much faster though. It took me a game or two to get up to speed and it was a big eye opener when I got up here just how much skill is on each team.” 

McNeil then had a promising start to his time with the Cataractes from the winter months into the springtime. He put up 11 points through 22 regular season contests with the squad and he started to get more recruiting interest from teams in the NCAA as well.

After the season ended, the power forward eventually announced his commitment to play Division I hockey at the University of Alaska Fairbanks on July 30, 2025.

“I’m proud to announce my commitment to play Division I hockey at the University of Alaska Fairbanks,” he posted to his Instagram page. “Huge thank you to my family, coaches, and everyone who’s supported me along the way.”

McNeil had been in touch with the Nanooks program for a while. He was originally contacted by one of the previous coaches at the university that is no longer there anymore but some of the new coaching staff then connected with him once they were brought on and talks continued from there.

“There’s really good people there, the coaches are really welcoming,” he said about his decision to play college hockey in Fairbanks in the future. “I think it’s a great place for me to go. I’ve been told that it’s a place that you need to experience at least once in your life [Alaska].”

He’s not the only major-junior athlete to commit to the Nanooks either as a handful of other guys have done so in recent months as well. McNeil already knows a few of the other recruits that are in the WHL and BCHL and has a lot of mutual connections with some of his future teammates too.

As for now, the soon to be 19-year-old is preparing for another year of junior hockey - and this time it’ll be his first full season in Shawinigan. He doesn’t think that his success would have happened without his time in Prince George though and he has a lot of fond memories of his time with the Spruce Kings.

The British Columbia native was originally inspired to try hockey since his father enjoys the sport and also after he watched the movie ‘Miracle’ and loved it. McNeil grew up just outside of Vancouver and lived about two minutes away from the rink as a kid. He has fond memories of getting up in the mornings when he was younger, getting ready to go skate, and remembering his mother putting his gloves out over the vents at their house so that they were warm and dry for him to wear bright and early in the morning for hockey.

After playing in Delta and with the Delta Hockey Academy as a young hockey player, McNeil settled on heading out to play in the BCHL in Prince George as just a 17-year-old. Even though the adjustment to living away from home and living with billets wasn’t very hard, the adjustment up into the ranks of playing junior hockey sure took some getting used to at the time.

“I was really shell-shocked, I don’t think I did very well but it was a really huge learning process,” McNeil said about his rookie season in juniors. He absolutely loved his time with the Spruce Kings but said that his first year was definitely a learning experience. “My coach was super tough on me … but the way he treated me kind of changed the way I did things and I slowly became a way better player with my habits and stuff and then the next year I did way better.”

His first year in Prince George, the power forward scored six points through 43 games. In his second season, McNeil really started to get a hold of things and he racked up 23 points through 39 games before being acquired by Shawinigan.

For anyone who hasn’t seen McNeil play, he says that he’s a guy who is hard on the puck and is someone who can fill that physical, gritty role that’s needed on every team. He enjoys getting into a tussle or two out on the ice and he says that he certainly loves to feed off of the energy of the fans as well.

As for the future, the 18-year-old is back in Shawinigan already and is getting prepared for his second season with the Cataractes. He will spend this year in the Q before heading up to Fairbanks likely in the fall of 2026, but nothing is set in stone quite yet. When he gets up to UAF he is thinking of majoring in something related to business.

When he’s not out on the ice, you can usually find McNeil out on the golf course or hanging out with the guys and playing poker.