With the 2015/16 SMAAAHL season over and done with, the Yorkton RawTec Maulers turned their attention to next season by hosting their 2016 spring camp at the Farrell Agencies Arena this past weekend.
Over 100 midget eligible hockey players came out in the hopes of catching the eye of head coach Graham Garrett enough to earn an invitation to the main camp in the fall, with many players managing to impress the Mauler bench boss. “There were a lot of skilled guys that came out this year for the camp,” said Garrett. “A lot of times when you go to camps there aren’t really a lot of surprises, but here we had a ton of surprises, and some that made decisions change for us over the weekend, which is something that doesn’t always happen at camp.”
Garrett said that the competition level at the camp was impressive, mainly because of the recent success that Yorkton has seen at the bantam ‘AA’ level, with three consecutive provincial titles. “You look at the guys that were here, some of them are second year midget guys, some first, some second year bantam, but they all know how to win,” mentioned the Mauler head coach. “Some of these kids have won the provincial titles four times in the last four years.
“That doesn’t happen by chance, that happens because guys know what it takes to win hockey games and championships, and if we lose some guys to junior we are still able to replace them with guys that are made of the same cloth, so that’s great for us.”
As for how many spots the players are competing for, Garrett says that while no one’s roster spot is safe, there are at the very least four forward spots that are definitely open on next year’s team. “We’ve got a great core returning, with only graduating four forwards, so if everyone stays we should have a strong team next year,” offered Garrett, adding that he is very aware that the chances of him getting all of his midget-eligible returning players back next year is very little indeed. “We had the most amount of players play junior hockey last year out of all the teams in the league. We had 12 guys play SJHL or WHL games, so we know that a couple of the guys will probably be playing junior next year, and that’s good for them because that’s what we want; we want to get these guys to the next level.”
Still though, if the Maulers do end up promoting every player that they feel will play junior next year, Garrett still believes that with the talent he saw in camp, the Maulers should still be a playoff team in 2016/17. “If we lose the guys that we may to junior, maybe it puts us at the middle of the road and a low playoff spot,” mentioned Garrett. “If some of those guys come back, then it puts us back to being a contender right out of the gate, but either way we’ll be competitive.”
