"The goal is to select the 23 best players to play for the hockey team," said Battlefords North Stars coach and general manager Kevin Hasselberg nearly a week before the team opening training camp.
Sounds simple enough right?
Well it won't be simple, but Hasselberg expects to have about 50 players at camp all with a chance to make the team.
The North Stars have one goalie in Connor Creech returning, who played in 25 of the teams 58 regular season games and also saw action during the North Stars playoff run relieving Graham Hildebrand for a few games.
On defence, gone are Travis Sparrow, Woody Klassen, Mitch Berg and Klay Kachur. Returning to the North Stars camp will be Brody Luhning, who is expected to be one of the top defenceman in the league. Also solid defenceman Dillon Forbes and Matt Sheeran, who both improved throughout the season will be cornerstones of the defence this season.
Up front, the North Stars have just seven forwards who finished the season with the team on the roster. Those include, in order of their point production last season, Braeden Johnson, Kyle Hall, Tanner Schwab, Roger Tagoona, Tanner Quinn, Ryne Keller and Robbie Newton. The North Stars will also have at camp Blake Young and Carter Danczak who both played one regular season game with the North Stars last season as affiliated players form the Battlefords Midget Stars.
Gone from last year's team are Blake Tatchell, Brett Miller, Boyd Wakelin and Jordan Ethier, who graduated along with Tim Rollins who was traded this summer and Jared Samborski who was forced to retire due to several injuries he has accumulated.
"Because the bar was set so high and the leadership core that graduated from our program last year left such a positive impression on the younger players the leadership core that is coming in is well prepared," said Hasselberg. "There are no surprises this year everyone knows what the expectations are and I believe the players want to exceed those."
North Stars camp begins Aug. 31 and after a full season and off-season with the club Hasselberg has high expectations from his players and recruits during the eveluation process of training camp and pre-season.
"Obviously we want to put them through a number of tests both physically and mentally and then find players that have fundamental awareness when playing the game," said the head coach. "If we can achieve those things, or when we achieve those things, we feel that we will have a competitive hockey team to open up with. We want to make sure we continue to develop and we continue to push forward to achieving our goals this season."
After three days of training camp, the North Stars will play exhibition games Sept. 2 in Wainwright, Sept. 7 in Melfort, Sept. 8 at home to Melfort, Sept. 15 at home to Humboldt and Sept. 16 in Humboldt.
