The CanElson Drilling Estevan Bruins are gearing up for their annual spring training camp this weekend and the coach expects to stick to the plan implemented the past couple of seasons.
Head coach and GM Chris Lewgood said the numbers aren’t finalized, yet, but they expect to see around four teams totalling 60 players at the camp at Affinity Place.
According to Lewgood, the main objective of spring camp is to use it as an opportunity to evaluate their players list and potential players, and not solely to determine who will make the hockey team in the upcoming season.
“It’s a broader spectrum than just this coming season, we look at the young guys who are not eligible to play for our team, guys that we’re considering drafting coming up at this year’s draft and guys currently in the mix playing junior hockey,” Lewgood said.
Some of the players Lewgood is excited to see at the camp is Jake Tesarowski, Chase Tippett and Riley Woods.
Tesarowski and Tippett are both 1997-born players. Tesarowski, a defenceman, played a few games with the Bruins this past season, and has, recently, been playing on the Regina midget AAA Pat Canadians team. He had 10 goals and 37 assists with the Pat Canadians this previous season.
Tippett, a forward, played last year with the Prince Albert midget AAA Mintos and had 11 goals and 12 assists.
Woods is a 1996-born player, and he, too, was on the Bruins roster for a few games this past season, but he played the majority of the 2014-2015 hockey campaign with the Pat Canadians. He had 22 goals and 37 assists with Regina.
Some of the players who will be attending spring camp might challenge the older players for spots on the team, Lewgood said.
With the organization hosting the 2016 Western Canada Cup, they will continue to stick with the plan and evaluate their list. At this point they are not really looking for any new players to join the team.
“We’ve known about this tournament for some time, for as long as I’ve been involved with the Bruins. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make it official until this year, but we’ve been gearing up towards the 2015-16 season for some time, as kind of the first year in what we hope to be a sustained stronghold on things,” Lewgood said.
He added everything is going as planned, and they are going to continue to work on turning the corner this upcoming season.
