Week one is done, and after a short break, the Vancouver Stealth are set to resume their training camp.
The Stealth finished their first weekend of training camp in Langley on Nov. 23 as they prepare for the 2015 season.
Forty players showed up to the Langley Events Centre field house looking to impress the coaching staff and management.
Among them, 15 rookies competing for a roster spot.
“I was happy with the first run,” said Stealth head coach Dan Perreault.
“I thought we had good pace and the guys worked hard. It’s tough competition out there.”
“It took the lungs a little bit to catch up to the legs,” said Rhys Duch, who led the team with 80 points last season.
“There’s a lot of new faces from the coaching staff down to the players. It was a great first session.”
Training camp kicked off on Saturday with two sessions, a morning and an evening one. The morning one focused on drills and conditioning while the evening session featured a scrimmage with the players divided into two teams.
The following day included another scrimmage for most of the two hour camp and concluded with some one-on-one battle drills.
“There’s a different energy this year,” said Curtis Hodgson, who’s back for his 11th NLL season.
“People are excited to get back and really improve on what didn’t go well last year and it starts with hard work and competition.”
“The coaches did a great job of giving us expectations of how training camp is going to be like and how tight it’s going to be,” said forward Lewis Ratcliff.
“There’s a lot of guys competing for not very many spots and I don’t think anybody is safe.”
“The competition is just so tight and we can’t keep them all,” said Perreault.
“We have to make some fairly quick decisions because the season is going to start real soon.”
The Stealth took a week off and resume training camp this weekend.
That includes a scrimmage against Edmonton Saturday and another scrimmage against Colorado on Sunday.
Saturday’s scrimmage is the season ticket holder party and Sunday’s game is open to the public.
For full details and dates and times of Stealth training camp, click here.
To watch videos from training camp, visit the Vancouver Stealth YouTube channel.
