Kings conditioning camp begins

Times Editor

 

Nearly two dozen 15-20 year old hockey players began their 2011-2012 season when they attended the Wheatland Kings Conditioning Camp Aug. 28-30 at the Strathmore Family Centre.

The four-on-four camp is designed to get the players ready for the upcoming Junior Selection Camp, Sept. 2-4, before the annual Black & Gold game Sept. 5 (1:30 p.m.).

“It’s a sort of a way to get guys conditioned without running them through a whole bunch of drills,” said head coach and general manager Doug Murphy. “You can get guys skating harder when they’re having fun and being a little competitive, rather than when you’re running drills over and over. There is enough of that during the season.”

According to Murphy, the camp is strictly for conditioning purposes, but some players can definitely catch the eye of the coaching staff with a solid performance.

“There are some guys that stand out and we’ll talk to them,” said the coach of the camp. “It’s more just to get everybody back into shape and ready to go for Friday. Some of the guys graduated school and have gone to work for the summer and are working full-time, so they haven’t trained like they may have in other years.”

“After the first session, the thing that stood out is how bad of shape everyone was in,” joked Murphy. “(By the end) of the camp, it should look how it should look.”

With the player selection camp starting Sept. 2, Murphy is optimistic of this 2011-2012 squad. He believes the team is built with speed and has a strong nucleus of defence and goaltending. He hopes to find some players who can put the puck in the net during the main camp to supplement his forward ranks.

“(I hope) we can build on what we had last year,” said Murphy. “This year the schedule is a little more intense and only the top four teams in each division make the playoffs, so every game is an important game.

“I think we’re kind of going in with expectations that we will be in they playoffs … hopefully be battling for home ice advantage.”

The Kings will hit the ice every night from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. (Friday-Sunday), before taking the top 30 players to the Black & Gold game.

The team will open the regular season on Sept. 23 in Didsbury before hosting Coaldale in their home opener the following night.