The Estevan Meter peewee AA Bruins held their first training camp without a lot of holdovers from the previous year – including the team’s name.
The team, formerly known as the Westmoreland Bruins until a sponsorship change this offseason, had only one player left over from last season’s team, defenceman Rylan Hansen. This meant tryout camp for the team was pretty wide open.
“I thought it went really good and obviously when you introduce the out-of-town kids it makes a big difference,” said Bruins head coach Aren Miller after the Bruins’ black and white intersquad game at the end of the weekend-long tryout camp Sunday. We talked before about hopefully having some really tough decisions and we definitely do. We’ve got four exhibition games next week and we’re going to take a few extra kids.”
Miller said he and the assistant coaches were looking for skill and speed among the players who were there at the camp.
“We were looking for speed and skill to start and if they’ve got some size it’s just a bonus,” Miller said. “(There is) no body contact in peewee so you can be a smaller player and if you’ve got the wheels, you can get away with it. I think from what we saw, especially (Sunday), I think we have a combination of some big kids who have a lot of skill. There were definitely some surprises this weekend so it was good to see.”
The blank slate means Miller and the coaches can experiment with a little bit of chemistry and try to figure out who works best with whom.
“I think we’re going to take the best players and try to find the best spots for them,” Miller said. “That was our plan going in and I think we’re in a really good situation right now. We’ve got a lot of good players and it’s just a matter of finding the right combination.”
After Tuesday’s pre-season battle with the Weyburn Red Wings in Weyburn, the Bruins’ next action will be a preseason home game Thursday against Weyburn at Affinity Place. They’ll have a home and home series on the weekend against the Moose Jaw Warriors before their South Sask Peewee AA Hockey League season starts Oct. 6 at home to Weyburn.
