The Airdrie Thunder won’t open its season for another six weeks, but its new coach got his first glimpse of the prospective team last weekend.
The Heritage Junior Hockey League team held its annual summer conditioning three-on-three tournament at the Ron Ebbesen Arena in Airdrie, Aug. 14-15, and coach Darryl Einarson said he was impressed with the early season level of competition amongst the players.
“Guys are blocking shots during a three-on-three fun game, so they’re going to bring some intensity and I really like that,” he said. “They’re having a great time and really showing their skill level out there.”
Frank McEvoy, the team’s president, general manager and director of hockey operations, said he was happy with the player’s on-ice passion even though this event was a team fundraiser and pre-season conditioning camp.
“It achieves what we wanted to do, which is get people in shape for the next level of hockey,” he said. “A lot of guys are in pretty good shape; better than I expected, and some of the guys we were hoping would look good are looking really good. But we don’t really want to make decisions on guys at this time. This is strictly conditioning.”
Teams played either three or four games each day, which helped Einarson and McEvoy put players through an adequate pre-season test.
“In the second or third games in the day is where the conditioning kicks in,” McEvoy said. “Some of the games are a little bit out of hand, but everybody’s giving 100 per cent. I’m quite happy with all eight of the teams.”
“Coming to meet the guys and seeing some of our players out there gets you excited for the season already,” Einarson said. “They already have the intensity and it’s going to be a talented team. I’m looking forward to it.”
The Thunder will have a number of returning players from last year, but that number may vary depending on how several players do at various Junior A camps next week.
“I anticipate we’ll have 12-14 coming back and if the guys don’t make the Junior A teams, we could have upwards of 18 coming back,” McEvoy said. “Either way, we’re happy with it.”
The Thunder’s training camp, which is an open tryout, will begin Sept. 3 with registration at 4:30 p.m. and on-ice drills beginning at 8 p.m. The 17th annual red and white intra-squad game will run on Labour Day, Sept. 6, at 4 p.m. at the Ron Ebbesen Arena.
