For much of the past year the Estevan Bruins have gone to great lengths to expand and improve its scouting network. Beginning Friday they will start to see the fruits of those labours.
The Black and Gold will hold their annual spring prospects camp over the weekend at Affinity Place with the first on-ice session scheduled for Friday afternoon.
Roughly 75 players from throughout North America are expected at the camp and will look to catch the eye of Bruins coaches and scouts in hopes of earning an invitation to the club's fall camp.
Head coach and GM Chris Lewgood said this year's camp is especially important as the club has a number of holes to fill, particularly among its forward ranks.
"We have so many guys and so much turnover, we're really banking on this spring camp to be a step in the right direction to figure out who's going to play for the Bruins next year," Lewgood said. "The younger kids, we use it as a gauge for our list. It will indicate whether we're where we think we are with the list."
Lewgood said although the players attending camp range in age from 14 to 19, he feels it is a great weekend to evaluate their talent level and determine if they can help the club in the future.
"I'm the type of coach who believes in bringing in the best players and looking at the details later. I want to see how they stack up against one another and where they are in their development," he said.
Since his hiring last May, Lewgood, along with director of player personnel Cole Zahn and the club's scouting staff have worked to identify talent in Saskatchewan and beyond.
Lewgood said the Estevan area and southern Saskatchewan remain especially important to them, and they have been successful in adding some of the region's top young talent to their protected list.
As is SJHL policy, when a player turns 15 he is eligible to be added to any team's protected list. However if multiple teams file on a single player when he turns 15, he is given the option to select which team he would like to join.
Over the past year or so the Bruins have had 14 such instances and lost just two of those players to other SJHL clubs.
"With southern Saskatchewan, the philosophy we've developed and put in place has worked out really well," he said. "We've been able to successfully list the best players in the '98 and '99 category in southern Saskatchewan. It makes for a good future for the club and time will tell how well we'll be able to fill those voids."
However, Lewgood added there are only so many players to go around in southern Saskatchewan and with many teams vying for that talent, expanding their network has become even more important. While they continue to search throughout Canada, and will have players from B.C. through Ontario in camp, Lewgood said they have also made solid connections in the United States where minor hockey is growing at an incredible rate. He expects there will be kids from the more traditional hockey states such as Minnesota and Michigan as well as some non-traditional states such as Utah and Arizona.
"I'm not clear on how it was done in the past but once I got here we just implemented our own thing," Lewgood said. "We have a strong presence in southern Saskatchewan and a lot of commissioned scouts and informal guys all over North America. That gives us a pretty broad spectrum of players."
The majority of players on the club's protected list are expected in camp although some are still competing in the Telus Cup national midget AAA tournament in Moose Jaw or playing with other teams.
As they are still accepting players into the camp, a firm schedule was not available as of press time.
