Osoyoos Coyotes’ forward Jackson Glimpel fell to his knees, but he managed to fire a shot that sailed just over the pad of North Okanagan Knights goalie Daniel Paul during playoff action in March at the Sun Bowl Arena. The Coyotes knocked off the Knights in the first round of the playoffs, but were eliminated by the Summerland Steam in the next round. The Coyotes begin their main training camp for the 2016-17 KIJHL season Thursday morning. Practices, intersquad games and exhibition games will continue all weekend. (Richard McGuire file photo)
You know the end of another gorgeous South Okanagan summer is rapidly approaching when prospects with the Osoyoos Coyotes gather to try and earn a roster spot.
That’s exactly what will happen Thursday morning (Aug. 25) when the Osoyoos Coyotes main training camp gets underway.
Ken Law, who is heading into his seventh season as head coach and general manager of the Coyotes, expects between 40 and 45 players to participate in this year’s training camp, including roughly 10 returning players from last year’s roster.
“I think 40 to 45 players is a good number … we used to invite more,” said Law. “We’re looking at roughly 10 returning players coming into the main camp, but there might be a couple more or couple less depending on how many players are going to be attending Junior A camps.”
Player registration will officially kick off training camp at 11 a.m. on Thursday before Law addresses all of the players and their parents at noon.
Fitness testing will begin at 12:30 p.m. with the first team practice taking place at 1 p.m. There will be more practices and fitness testing throughout the afternoon before the first intersquad game takes place Thursday evening at 7 p.m.
Practice resumes Friday morning at 10 a.m., with a second practice set for 11:15 a.m.
The second intersquad game will take place Friday afternoon at 4 p.m., before players and parents gather for a meet and greet buffet at 7 p.m. at Smitty’s Family Restaurant.
There will be a pre-game skate Saturday morning starting at 9 a.m. and a second pre-game skate at 10 a.m. before one of the intersquad teams takes on a split team from the Princeton Posse beginning at 1:30 p.m. A second exhibition game will take place at 4:15 p.m.
On Sunday, a third exhibition game will take place at 10 a.m.
An exhibition game between the Coyotes and Grand Forks Border Bruins will take place Sunday evening at 7:30 p.m. at the Sun Bowl Arena.
Leading scorer and former captain Rainer Glimpel, who led the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League in scoring last season, has moved on and will be attending college, said Law.
Other top scorers like Bobby LaRue and Braeden Tuck are also not expected back, he said.
However, outstanding forwards Dan Stone, who has already been named team captain prior to the opening of training camp, and Colin Bell are expected to be two of the best offensive players in the league this coming season, said Law.
“I’ve named Dan our captain and Colin will be an assistant captain,” he said. “They are both outstanding hockey players and leaders in the dressing room and we’re looking for very big things from both of those young men this season.”
The goaltending tandem of Lawrence Langan and Brett Soles have both moved on as well, so the Coyotes will be starting the season with two new goaltenders, said Law.
The Coyotes had a remarkable regular season last year losing only nine of 52 games in regulation time.
However, their season came to a bitterly disappointing ending in the second round of the playoffs when they fell to the Summerland Steam.
Law said the group of returning players won’t soon forget the playoff collapse and he’s confident they will want to avenge that early exit with a long playoff run this season.
“I’m looking to have the same kind of team as we had last year … which means we will be fast,” said Law. “As a group we have to work on the things that cost us dearly in the playoffs. We had great goaltending all season and we didn’t give up a lot of quality chances, but for some reason against Summerland we gave up far too many quality chances and our goaltending wasn’t at the same level it had been all season.
“Those are some of the things we’re going to address right off the bat and hopefully we’ll get a better result once the playoffs roll around.”
Law said he expects to have the roster reduced to 25 to 28 players following Sunday’s exhibition game and he will likely carry 25 players on the roster heading into the season opener on Saturday, Sept. 10 in Revelstoke.
The teams in the KIJHL agreed earlier this summer to reduce the regular season schedule from 52 games to 47 and also eliminated all inter-conference play.
This means the Coyotes won’t be playing any regular season games against any teams from the Kootenay Conference. This includes Columbia Valley, Creston Valley, Fernie, Golden, Kimberley, Beaver Valley, Castlegar, Grand Forks, Nelson and Spokane.
The Coyotes will only play teams in the Okanagan-Shuswap Conference, which includes Kelowna, North Okanagan (Armstrong), Princeton, Summerland, 100 Mile House, Chase, Kamloops, Revelstoke and Sicamous.
The Coyotes will play four road games to begin the season, before hosting their home opener on Saturday, Sept. 24 against the Kamloops Storm.
Game time for that contest will be 7:35 p.m.
KEITH LACEY
Osoyoos Times
