"Where'd I put my briefcase?" he asks.
It would be wrong to say the head coach of Canada's junior team is panicking - Dave Cameron could flood the ice with what travels through his veins - but he does sound slightly concerned.
Perhaps the briefcase contains one or two of those absurdly simple systems hockey coaches appear to worship - one fore-check or two fore-check, dump in or chase, outlet pass or off the glass - or perhaps it holds the secret game plan for what his underdog squad can do to the fast and stacked U.S. team.
What's in it? he is asked.
"My lunch!"
The 52-year-old Prince Edward Island native has been a bit of a hockey vagabond, so it's understandable he might be concerned about his next meal. A journeyman player in his time with the New York Islanders and Colorado Rockies/New Jersey Devils organizations, he has coached in Newfoundland and Northern Ontario and the state of New York, handled junior players and American Hockey League players and, in recent years, the best Canadian players under 20 in search of gold at the world junior championships.
Now, as head coach, Cameron's assignment is so simple it requires no formal memo from Hockey Canada: Win back the gold.
And considering that the Americans not only remain lightning quick but boast multiple return players from their 2010 victory, Cameron's task is rather daunting. The very best Canadian junior-age players - Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin - are missing, Hall sticking with the Edmonton Oilers and Seguin with the Boston Bruins. Nor did Cameron and his fellow coaches and scouts seek out creative junior players to fill the gap, choosing instead to go with what he calls "a blue collar" squad that will play the game as Canada has traditionally played: hard, physical and determined.
Cameron talks about "200-foot players" who are solid in all three zones of the ice. In two intersquad games this week there were barely a handful of plays that gained a rise from the sparse audience. While there are 10 first-round draft picks at the camp, none of them have the sparkle of a Hall or a Seguin or several of the other Canadian junior stars of past tournaments. The best known would be Brayden Schenn, a 19-year-old who had been playing with the Los Angeles Kings. The most experienced is tiny defenceman Ryan Ellis, who will be playing in his third world junior and who makes up for his lack of size by having a dozen eyeballs strategically placed around his head.
They are not fancy, but they are talented, determined and understand the basics of the game - something that Cameron and his assistants continually stress.
"Repeat, repeat, repeat," Cameron responds when asked how one coaches a team so hastily put together. "And when you're done, repeat it again."
There is no accepted formula to coaching all-star teams or teams based around a few remarkably talented individuals. Eddie Johnston, once coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins in the heyday of Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, once boiled his coaching strategy down to a single sentence: "I just opened and closed the door."
Few coaches are so blunt and honest. They speak of their systems and "puck support" and "quick sticks" and breakout plans and neutral-zone strategies. The late Bob Johnson, once the beloved coach of the Calgary Flames, used to say, "There are times when I may as well be up in the stands having a cup of coffee with the press for all the control I have."
Cameron, however, has faith in control and fully realizes that coaching strategy will be required by this blue-collar team if it is going to compete with the speed of the Americans, the glitz of the Russians and the puck skills of the Swedes.
"The coaching isn't one man," he says. "It's coaches. And it's a work in progress."
He concedes that in such a quick tournament (Dec. 26 through Jan. 5 in Buffalo) you cannot "have as much input as you can with your club. It's because of the time. The more time you have at something, usually the better you are at it."
Time, however, is the same measure for all the best teams in this tournament, all made up of all-stars who have rarely played together.
"You hope that because these kids are elite that the message sinks in a little quicker," he says. "But they're kids - and it's junior hockey … and you never know."
Johnston would agree. "You can make a little adjustments here and there," he once said. "But overall it's up to the players. They've got a job to do on the ice - and you're not on the ice."