In his fourth training camp at the helm of the Cowichan Valley Capitals, head coach Bob Beatty is extremely pleased with what he has seen so far.
“I think it’s a better camp than we’ve had in the past,” he said. “I guess we had similar numbers last year, but we’ve got some good guys.”
Beatty got the Caps back into the B.C. Hockey League playoffs last year, the team’s first postseason appearance since 2012. Things are looking good for this coming season as well, based on the offseason efforts of the players who are in camp right now.
“I’m impressed with the work some of the veterans put in over the summer,” Beatty said. “And certainly some of the guys we saw last spring [at identification camp] have put in work as well.”
The Caps had cut their initial group down to around 30 players as of Thursday morning, with exhibition games scheduled for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
“There will be tougher ones as we get closer, certainly,” Beatty said. “It’s never easy releasing a player, but it gets tougher as it goes along.”
The Caps hosted the Victoria Grizzlies on Thursday evening and will visit Victoria on Friday night. They will be back at home against the Nanaimo Clippers on Saturday, with the puck drop at 7 p.m.
Fans can expect to see some hard-working hopefuls when the team hits the ice on Saturday.
“They’ll certainly see a lot of new faces in the lineup,” Beatty said. “These three games will be part of the evaluation process. We’ll try to get closer to our team by next weekend.”
