With a new season come new hopes, higher expectations and intense excitement.
The Victoria Grizzlies will take all those feelings and energies into training camp when the Junior A club officially opens shop today at Juan de Fuca Arena as the team prepares for the 2014-15 B.C. Hockey league season.
General manager and head coach Brad Knight has made himself perfectly clear, he wants to see competition and there will definitely be some change.
“I want camp to be intense. I want good players to get cut. I want good defencemen to be released. I want good goaltending to be cut,” he stressed. “If we have those types of problems at the end of training camp, then we’re going to ice a pretty good team.”
Not that the last two years have been bad, with records of 37-15-3-3 and 33-13-0-10 for second place overall finishes over the last two campaigns.
But this team now belongs to Knight and his assistant coach Micha Aivazoff, although departed coach Craig Didmon obviously handled a lot of the recruiting last season after Bill Bestwick was released. Knight has also been making trades along the way and bringing in his own players in hopes of moving onward and upward.
“I’m real happy. I think camp is going to be real good. I know we have a lot of new faces, but I don’t see it being an issue,” insisted Knight. “We’re going to be big, we’re going to be fast and I think we’re going to be offensively gifted.
“And I think our back end is going to be much different than last year,” he said of the defence. “I think we’ve more than re-tooled.”
Among those defensive recruits is American Meirs Moore from Duluth, Minnesota; Justin Sadler of Ohio; Cody Van Lierop and Alyn Nanji of Ontario; and local Tomba Huddlestan to go along with veterans Kevin Massy (who can also play forward) and Mitch Meek.
Up front the Grizzlies have added Mitchell Barker, P.J. Conlin, Brett Gruber, Spencer Hunter, Matt Kennedy, Nic Guiney, Dane Gibson and Quinn Thompson to a group that returns Garret Forster, Jay Mackie, Cole Pickup, Storm Wahlrab and captain Shawn McBride.
“We’re ready. It was a quick summer, but we’re excited to get back. We’re all itching to get back,” said McBride. “It’s early, but we see a lot of character. Everyone I have met seems like a real nice guy and a fun guy to be around. We have a good core, too.
“Our goals are the same every year,” added McBride. “We’re trying to win. We’re aiming at the playoffs and then anything can happen from there. We have a team built for it. We’re deep and I think that helps.”
Knight didn’t waste any time singling out McBride as his captain on a team where many of the recruits have come from positions of leadership.
“It’s exciting and I’m honoured to wear the ‘C’ on the jersey. It comes with a lot of responsibility and a lot of pressure, but I’m excited,” said McBride, who just celebrated his 19th birthday last weekend. “I like to think I was a leader last year, too. I just have to be myself.”
One of his roles is to be part of the welcoming committee for the new recruits, some of which have been skating the past few days.
“It’s not easy to move to a new city and meet a bunch of new guys, so we’re trying to make the transition easier. We’re trying to make them feel comfortable,” said McBride.
ICE CHIPS: The team will have off-ice testing this morning before practices at 2:30 and 3:45 p.m. Junior prep skaters will go at 5 and 6:15 p.m. before Team Benn scrimmages with Team Bozak at 8 p.m.
mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com
Twitter/tc_vicsports
