The ink is barely dry on local football’s season-opening scoresheets and the Cochrane Generals are already writing their own script for the upcoming Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) season.
Yes, hockey is here now, too.
The Generals opened training camp by auditioning players in Sept. 7-8 tryouts at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre (SLSFSC).
According to the tryout roster, 50 players were on hand for the opening Saturday session, with several bowing out after the first day.
Rookie head coach Evan McFeeters and his assistants, Brad Minogue and Jeff Gagnon, represent an overhaul of the Generals bench staff. Gone are head coach Ken Soloski and assistant coaches Dana and Tanner Boothby. The team retained goalie coach Tyler Fyten and second-year general manager Jacqueline Hurlburt.
McFeeters and crew had the team, boasting at least nine returning players, skating hard in drills for the Sunday-morning session on the SLSFSC Totem 1 ice.
“The first day, you’ve got to get rid of all the rust. It gives us a chance to weed out the top and bottom,” McFeeters said during the second day of tryouts. “Some guys felt they weren’t cutting it after the first day, so they made my job a lot easier by staying home today.”
Some of the more intriguing off-season developments include:
– Scoring forward Taylor House (30 goals, 35 assists last season), is not returning. As well, Power-forward Jason Labelle (12g, 40a) and blue-chip defenceman Nick Borody (6g, 14a) aged-out last season, leaving three very large gaps in the roster to fill.
– With Strathmore Wheatland Kings not icing an HJHL team this season due to, among other things, a lack of team executives and front-office structure, 21-year-old power-forward Andrew Bergmann is available and skated Sunday with the Generals. The 6-foot-4, 215-pound Airdrie native led the league in scoring last season with 43 goals and 47 assists in 35 games. He’s also considering playing senior men’s AAA hockey in Innisfail. The Generals hope to convince him to play his final season of junior here before joining the senior men’s ranks.
– Goalie Grayson Sharpe, who played late last season in Cochrane, has landed a spot with the Calgary Canucks in the Alberta Junior Hockey League.
– Veteran forward Kris Keller is “considering his options” for this season. While last season’s team scoring leader (35 goals, 39 assists) is on the camp roster, he wasn’t skating Sunday. Another vet d-man, Kashtin Gordon, isn’t coming out for his last season.
Undaunted, McFeeters is pressing ahead with his agenda.
“I see the team now as a team that can skate,” the 26-year-old coach said. “It might not be the bang-and-crash team people have seen in the past. It will be a puck-possession, fast, finesse-type of team.”
He hopes to achieve the changes simply enough.
“It’s just going to be a commitment to the team,” McFeeters insisted. “We’re going to be committed to being the hardest-working team in the league. We’re going to be accountable to each other out there.
“It’s just going to be a solid team effort in order to win a championship.”
The Generals open the HJHL exhibition season with a home-at-home series against the Okotoks Bisons starting Sept. 13 in Okotoks. The Bisons visit Oct. 14, 7:30 p.m. puck drop, at SLSFSC Totem 1.
