Over 100 prospects filled the Gallagher Centre this past weekend with the hopes of impressing the Yorkton RawTec Mauler brass enough to be invited back to Yorkton for the 2015 fall camp later this year.
Some tried to impress with their offensive abilities while others opted to try their hand at impressing with their play without the puck.
Still others tried to impress in the Barry Sparvier/Cody Devitt way, by dropping the gloves and attempting to pummel their fellow prospects.
But no matter how they tried to do it, they succeeded as the majority of the players at the spring camp made an impression says RawTec Mauler general manager Garth Simms, who also believes that the high level of talent that showed up at the camp made their future decision very difficult indeed. “We’re thrilled with the amount of talent that we have here. We have over 100 kids here this weekend. The big trick is to decide who is not coming back in the fall,” said Simms. “You can’t have one hundred kids at fall camp so we’ll probably cut that down to the 60 range for fall camp.
“The problem is, we have to make decisions on a lot of kids that have a lot of potential and a lot of skill.”
New RawTec Mauler head coach Graham Garrett echoed the statement made by his general manager, saying: “I thought this weekend showed that we’ve got a lot of skill and depth here.
“Hopefully when the fall comes around and it all shakes out in the end that we’ll have the depth that we need to be a competitive hockey team.”
Another problem, albeit a good one, that faces the RawTec Mauler general manager and coaching staff is the fact that they currently need to replace just five players from last year’s team, two forwards, two defencemen and a goaltender. “If you look at the roster from last year everyone can return but five players,” suggested Garrett, continuing, “But that’s before players are given a chance at the junior level and with midget ‘AAA’ you never know.
“There are always surprises. There are always guys that, over the summer, jump to junior situations and you don’t control that. What you do control is the depth that you have so that when those surprises come you can fill those holes and that’s what we’re looking for here at this camp.”
The 100-plus prospects at the camp took part in 12 games over three days, finishing up with the White versus Orange game on Sunday afternoon where the 34 top prospects from the camp went head-to-head in their final chance to be evaluated ahead of the upcoming fall camp.
