GM's Thoughts On Our Spring Training Program

Overall, I believe our Spring Training Program has been a tremendous success and all of the players who have participated have benefited in several important ways.

No other MWEHL teams at the U-16 level have provided such an extended showcase and evaluation opportunity for players this spring - not to mention three days per week intense skill development practices from coaches like Jabar and his excellent coaching staff.

Selecting players to complete our fall roster is a tough task (to say the least) as there have been very few, if any, players who have not impressed us significantly on some level, at some point in time.

All of the players who have participated in our program have proven themselves worthy candidates for consideration for fall roster spots, and all of them can and should be deemed good players.

Our job as coaches and team management is to do our best to sort through these worthy candidates and select those players who we believe are the most consistent in their effort and performance and who are the right fit for our team at this time based upon their attributes of skill, size, toughess, speed, smarts, spirit, citizenship, and leadership, amongst other intangibles.

If there is any real science at all involved in evaluating these attributes its found not so much in identifying them, but in assessing how they might specifically fit with our team's dynamics, our team's needs, and our team's style of play.

Further complicating this process is the fact that all of the players, particularly the younger players (92's), are in various stages of physical growth and maturity - which means some level of development projections towards several months down the road need to be made now as well.

While some players selected for fall roster spots may not necessarily be viewed by all people as the best players, to the coaches and team management the players selected have shown themselves to be the RIGHT players for our team at this time.

The job of our coaches and team management is to put together the best possible team we can from all of the players who are interested and available to be seen by us. Such process this spring has been a very real one in terms of exposing players to the extreme competitiveness that exists for very limited roster spots at the highest levels.

Right now we have been able to narrow down our roster to 3 open roster spots for skaters and 1 for a goalie. We are assessing the list of prospects for these positions and will inform our Spring Training Program participants of where they stand on Tuesday.

It is my sincere hope that the players who do not end up making our fall team, though disapointed, do not get discouraged and instead view this moment in time as a mere snapshot of where they stand right now as a hockey player - and remember that these snapshots will be constantly changing.

I further hope that each player who does not make our fall roster views their situation not as setback, but instead as a challenge, and will dedicate themselves, and prepare themselves, to best take advanatage of the next similar tryout opportunity that will certainly come their way.