Piston rookies open training camp
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/08/2015 (3155 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Yes, it’s still August and football may still be foremost on the minds of many, but nonetheless, the ice is in and the Steinbach Pistons are set to break training camp for the 2015-16 Manitoba Junior Hockey League campaign.
So with that in mind, and with the 30-degree temperatures continuing on the outside, some of us will head indoors this weekend for the start of Pistons’ training camp.
On Tuesday, under perfect conditions, the Pistons staged another immensely successful fund-raising golf tournament at Quarry Oaks with 200 golfers on hand, but now it’s back to work for Paul Dyck and company as they prepare for the coming season.
Expectations are again high for the Pistons this season and it has been that way since their momentous MJHL championship season in 2012-13. That set the bar very high for the Pistons, considered by many to be the leading franchise in the MJHL.
For Dyck, head coach and GM, he knows the pressure to ice another competitive team and he would it have no other way.
Things get underway Saturday morning at the T.G. Smith Centre with the prospects, or rookie camp, if you will.
About 35 prospects will be on hand for the three-day rookie camp. The players will be divided into two teams for the camp and they will first hit the ice Saturday at 10:00 a.m.
The rookie camp includes players born 1998, 1999 and 2000 and all those players born in 2000 will be released following the last practice Sunday night.
Of the remaining players born in 1998 and 1999, a group will be selected to play in the Prospects Game on Monday, Aug. 31 at 7:30 p.m. in Steinbach as the Pistons host the Selkirk Steelers.
Dyck says he expects to invite 10 players or so from the rookie camp to stay on for the main camp, which gets underway Tuesday morning. The main camp will have about 36 players and they will again be divided into two teams for the first week of the camp.
Following the final scrimmages on Thursday evening, some players will be released and the coaching staff will then advise those players that will dress for their exhibition game, to be played Friday, Sept. 4 at 7:30 p.m. vs. Fort Frances.
Scrimmages will continue Saturday at Steinbach and then the Pistons will host the Selkirk Steelers, Sunday, Sept. 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Dyck says those players attending this weekend’s rookie camp are either players they have selected in the MJHL bantam age draft, auto protect players, as some other invitees.
There are 11 or 12 returning players this year, including a strong core of five 20-year-olds, all forwards: Cole Smith, Daniel Taillefer, Denis Bosc, Tyler Penner and Hayden Goderis. Also returning are defencemen James Shearer, Connor Martin and Ryan Carlson, along with forwards Jordan Bochinski, Matt Gomercic, Julien Koga and Colton Veloso, if he doesn’t crack the Portland Winter Hawks line-up this year.
Dyck says he is anxious to see how some of the new players will perform in camp, such as local product Scott Petkau, and among others, a couple of American players, goaltender Jeremy Wik from Chicago, and Luke Amsbough, who was the highest scoring high school player in North Dakota last season.