Bisons win tourney

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The CFR Bisons have to be feeling pretty good about themselves after going 5-0 and winning their annual exhibition tournament last weekend at the Strathmore Family Centre.
Head coach Sandy Henry and his staff got a great look at players they were keen on, and he thought this was a great way to get a piece-by-piece look at the players that will best suit the team.
“We’ll have five extra, so we got 25,” said Henry. “For us it’s an excellent way to sort out our roster. I think anyone could see we had quite a few more extra guys than the other three teams that were there. We carried 15 extra guys in the tournament, most of the other teams were between six and eight. I think our guys tried to equalize out and we got an all situation look at every guy and it was really useful.”
Henry saw some mistakes out there that are normal because of players coming from different leagues, and another step in the evaluation process without any systems put into place.
However, he did see positives come of players as their defensive coverage improved steadily in the tournament.
“Obviously we haven’t had a chance to work on any defensive zone at all,” said Henry. “When you have five guys from five different associations on ice, with five different ideas … that wasn’t matching as good. Definitely we saw some d-zone breakdowns where they weren’t getting proper coverage. The thing I did like about our d-zone, I think our attack to the point man was very good. The lanes we took, blocked a lot of shots and that’s a part of us being a really quick team and makes that more effective, where we really close that space and teams have a hard time getting that puck through clean.”
He did mention he challenged the veterans earlier in the week, and the coaches felt the ones dressed met expectations in solidifying their spots on the team.
“I thought they did that,” said Henry. “Every guy got a little bit of a pat on the back, but they also got a gun lashing at times. I thought at the end of the tournament they were real good.”
The Herd had two exhibition games this week and Henry thinks now it will be down to choosing the right mix of players, who want to sacrifice some offense to help out in the defensive end and who can make plays out of nothing to produce offensively.
With the regular season coming up, he is excited to get things rolling.
“I think you’re always excited to get your team on the ice with what you feel is your team,” said Henry. “This trial process is a grind. It’s a grind on parents, players and coaches. We’ll be glad to get to the games and excited too. I think we got a good squad.”