The long offseason is over.
Tuesday night the Battlefords North Stars welcome the Kindersley Klippers in their first pre-season action of the 2015-16 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League season, a day North Stars head coach and general manager Kevin Hasselberg has been waiting a long time for.
“This is a day we’ve been waiting for ever since last season ended,” Hasselberg said. “We want to establish what kind of team we’re going to be this season, but more importantly we want to make sure the players that are here in camp are going to be able to play that way.”
All North Stars hopefuls are in the Battlefords, as they took part in off-ice fitness testing Sunday. Even though the pre-season games don’t have any statistical effect on the regular season, Hasselberg says they’re still games you want to win.
“You always want to win, that’s why we compete and that’s why the game is competitive,” he said. “Regardless of the situtation, [the players] have to be at their best every time they hit the ice right from the first pre-season game to the last game of the season.”
The North Stars currently have 36 players at camp, and will make cuts to get that number down to between 23 and 25 by the start of the season.
“We’ve got a lot of hard work in front of us, every one of these kids in camp right now are quality people,” he said. “They’re going to test us as much as we test them, and I think that’s what’s really exciting about the competition of pre-season and camp. It’s going to be a challenge to make sure that we ice the most competitive roster possible.”
A number of both returning and new players at camp for the North Stars have had offensive success in the past, a trend Hasselberg hopes continues into the season.
“We want to play a puck possession hockey game,” he said. “We want to make sure in a 60-minute hockey game, we’re carrying the puck for 35- or 40-minutes a game. It’s an exciting brand of hockey our fans will appreciate but it’s not going to come without a few headaches along the way. We like the skill level of our camp, we think we’ve got some highly creative players and we’ve also got some eager players who might not have played that style of hockey over the last few seasons that we’re going to be patient with and we’re looking forward to teaching.”
The departure of Spencer Trembley opens the window of opportunity for Cut Knife’s Ryan Rewerts to grab the starting job in goal for the North Stars, though Hasselberg says nothing is given.
“Ryan wasn’t the starter last year and we want him to be that player this year,” he said. “Like anything in competitive sports you have to earn the right to be what you want to be. You have to earn the right to be successful and both he and Taryn (Kotchorek) have to earn their positions on this hockey team and we look forward to them two dueling it out.”
Last season, Rewerts appeared in 21 games posting a 2.70 GAA and a .920 save percentage with an 8-8-1 record.
Kotchorek, a North Battleford native, played last season with the Battlefords midget AA Barons, posting an 8-11-3 record with a 3.68 GAA in 25 games. He served as the backup for the North Stars for a few games last season when Trembley went down with an injury.
While every sports team’s long-term goal is to win a championship, Hasselberg says looking that far down the road isn’t the best course of action.
“We’re going to set individual goals with our players, we’re going to create a vision both long-term and short-term,” Hasselberg said. “Right now our goal is to have a very successful hockey camp and get to know our players on a personal level and know exactly what makes them tick while giving them the opportunity to get to know us as a staff.”
The North Stars hit the ice at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
