The Campbell River Storm have no shortage of players right now, but the VIJHL champs do not know exactly how the squad will look.
With the regular season only a week away, a lot can still happen, even after last weekend’s camp.
“We’re pretty excited about our team,” head coach Lee Stone said.
In all, there were 58 taking part in the camp, slightly higher than expected.
“It was obviously a real high number for us,” he added.
The players were broken down into four squads that shared the goalies in camp, as they played a round robin format on the weekend, with the semi-finals and finals following on Monday.
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There were a couple of surprises in camp, Stone says. For example, the team was able to sign Owen Christiansen whom they team identified at the Junior A Nanaimo Clippers’ camp.
“He came in and did a really good job and really impressed,” he said.
The team also had local player Davis Frank come out for the main camp. Stone had expected him to play major midget hockey again, but he decided to play at home.
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The coach’s plan this week is to use Wednesday’s pre-season game against Oceanside as a chance to get a better look at some of the younger players from last weekend’s camp.
Stone expects this coming weekend’s pre-season games against the Delta Ice Hawks, the Pacific Junior Hockey League champs, the Storm will put out a team closer to the one he expects to open the season. Like the Storm, the Ice Hawks typically are able to retool rather than have to rebuild from season to season.
“They also recruit very well,” Stone added.
The Storm will travel to Nanaimo on Thursday, Sept. 6 for the season opener against the Buccaneers, with the home opener to follow on Friday night when the Storm host Oceanside.
Stone has identified a leadership core for the team, but there should still be spots up for grabs. This could change though, depending on whether some of the players in the Storm fold stick with the Junior A clubs whose camps they are currently attending. Already, Stone has a few returns from Junior A camps, but as of mid-week there were still six players in the camps that could return to Campbell River or stay up in Junior A.
“We’ll obviously wait and see what happens with those guys,” he said. “The roster can certainly change given what happens with those guys.”
The Junior A and Junior B seasons are starting at the same time, meaning the teams should get a better sense of who is available a little earlier.
“For the most part, we should have a pretty good idea of who’s coming back andwho’s not before our season starts,” Stone said. “There’s a lot of moving parts through the end of August to the beginning of September.”
The Storm is hosting its annual tailgate barbecue/season ticket drive on Saturday at 5 p.m., which will precede the exhibition game against Delta at 7:30 p.m. Sunday’s rematch against Delta starts at 1:30 p.m.
