After narrowly missing out on the Alberta AAA Midget Hockey League (AMHL) playoffs last year, the Airdrie CFR Chemical Bisons is preparing for another tough campaign.
The team is currently holding its preseason training camp, with an eye already set on the regular season.
“The energy is ramping up for everyone right now,” said head coach Dustin Taylor, who is entering his second year behind the Bisons’ bench. “You can feel it.”
Airdrie’s rookie camp was held Aug. 31 to Sept. 2, before the main camp took place Sept. 3 to 6. The camp concluded with the team’s annual Red and White inter-squad game Sept. 7.
The intensity throughout the first few weeks has been positive, according to Taylor.
“I’ve been pleasantly surprised, so far, with camp and how hard the kids have trained,” he said. “Our fitness testing is showing that – our results are way higher than the group we had last year.”
When the Bisons takes to the ice for the first game of the season, it will be with a vastly different group of players. According to Taylor, just three members of the 2018-19 roster are expected to return.
“We’re going to have 17 new players on the team this year,” he said.
Two Airdrie CFR Chemical Bisons trialists scuffle for the puck Sept. 7, during the AAA midget team's annual Red and White game at the Ron Ebbesen Arena.Part of the reason for such a high turnover, Taylor added, is the individual success of the team’s players from last year. Several stalwarts from 2018-19 have graduated to the major junior or junior A level, such as top scorers Tristan Zandee and Ty Mueller. Despite having two more years of midget eligibility, the two sharpshooters will spend the next few seasons with teams in the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL), before heading to their respective NCAA Division 1 programs in 2022.
“It just shows our coaches are putting guys through and getting them to the next level,” said 17-year-old defenseman Owen Lugowski, one of the few returnees this season. “It shows they’re here to work with players individually, as well as on the team aspect.”
Bisons alumni who are currently training with Western Hockey League (WHL) teams include defensemen Caleb Willms and Damon Agyeman, who are both with the Medicine Hat Tigers, and last year’s captain Jett Jones, who is with the WHL’s Lethbridge Hurricanes.
Players who will ply their trade at the junior A level include Travis Bohnet, Nick De Beurs and Colton Koran. Bohnet and De Beurs are both training with the AJHL’s Drumheller Dragons, while Koran is impressing in preseason with the Olds Grizzlys.
The Red and White game is one of the last opportunities for a Bisons trialist to impress, as the team makes its second last round of cuts afterwards. The AMHL season kicks off at the end of September.“[We’ll have] new faces, but that culture of excellence is very much going to be consistent from last year,” Taylor said. “In saying that, it’s probably going to be improved a bit, because the players in our association are learning what we’re about and what is expected."
Last year, the Bisons ended the regular season agonizingly short of a berth in the playoffs after finishing at the bottom of the Chrysler South Division, despite boasting a respectable 16-15-3 record. The division was ultra-competitive, with the bottom three teams separated by just a single point.
Competition was so tight, in fact, that it wasn’t until the final day of regular-season play that Airdrie was eliminated from playoff contention, due to the results of two other games in the division.
“Our division was really tight all the way through,” Lugowski said. “It didn’t matter which team you were playing – it was always a grind, every game. It shows the league is very strong and any team can win any game.”
The Bisons will get a first look at its division opponents Sept. 11 to 15, when the Okotoks Bow Mark Oilers hosts its annual preseason tournament. Any final cuts will occur afterwards, according to Taylor.
As of Sept. 10, the AMHL 2019-20 schedule has not been released. For more information on the league, visit amhl.ab.ca
