There’s nothing quite like making a strong first impression.
For new Battlefords Stars head coach Darren Martens, his initial glimpse of the players that will make up this year’s Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League squad has him excited for what’s ahead.
“I had seen parts of the spring camp before I got the job, but I wasn’t sure what to really expect until I got here this weekend,” Martens said. “Once things got rolling though I was really impressed with the returning players, the signed newcomers and those players who we invited and had yet to be signed.
“The team looks like it’s going to be a really well-rounded group here and I’ve very happy about that.”
Martens and new assistant coach Lee Ulmer watched four scrimmages and two fitness testing sessions before the annual black and white game took place at the Civic Centre Sunday morning as they worked on setting up the roster for the 2016-17 season.
“One of the main things I wanted to do this weekend was to get to know as many of the players as I possibly could,” Martens said. “I remembered a few from the spring camp but it was nice to put a face to the name and get to know them more than just players out on the ice.”
Following the scrimmage, Martens was most enthused by the overall strength of the forward lines and defensive pairings that will be in the lineup this year.
“If everything goes according to plan we should be really happy with how everything is going to look,” Martens said. “It’s a pretty well-rounded group.
“We have goal scorers, we have grinders and we have playmakers. When you look from top to bottom, we pretty much have everything out there.”
With the top five scorers from last year’s team all aging out of the midget ranks, replacing the likes of Owen Lamb, Keelan Saworski, Tanner Brewster, Jayden Nachtegaele and Mason Mullaney will be a tough task.
However, Martens says he feels there will be players on the roster that will fill those holes.
“The hardest thing to find is goal scorers but we believe that we have a couple of guys on the squad that have a natural touch around the net,” Martens said.
“You can win without those guys but it’s awfully tough. That will be great for us to have a couple of players that can score goals.”
The one question mark, however, that Martens will hope to solve during the pre-season will be in goal as the Stars look for a backup netminder to serve behind returning starter Lance Alm.
That spot will be determined in the coming weeks while Alm takes part in a Western Hockey League training camp with the Edmonton Oil Kings.
“We’re expecting Lance to be back after his training camp in Edmonton and he wants to come back and play for us this year,” Martens said.
“However, you never really know what things are going to look like until after the camps are all done in the WHL and in the SJHL (Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League). There are no guarantees in hockey and we will be excited if any of the guys we currently have on our roster make it to a higher level.”
With WHL and SJHL training camps taking place in the coming weeks, the Stars won’t actually be on the ice again until Sept. 6.
“There’s no practices in the league at all until then, so we’ll be using the long weekend to allow the players to either go home or get familiar with their billets and the town before we get going again,” Martens said.
“Once we get back going though we will start to get more into our systems and everything else that we need to get sorted out before the season begins.”
The Stars will have three pre-season games before they open up the regular season at home Sept. 29 against the Saskatoon Contacts.
They will visit the Beardy’s Blackhawks on Sept. 17 and then have a home-and-home series with the Saskatoon Blazers.
The Stars will host the Blazers on Sept. 20 at 7:30 p.m. before travelling to Saskatoon on Sept. 23 to wrap up their exhibition schedule.
