Players getting cranked for camp

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This article was published 16/09/2014 (4029 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THERE’S a certain first-day-of-school feel to the opening of a National Hockey League team’s training camp.

Old friends slap backs after a long summer — really long, if you are a member of the Winnipeg Jets, or any of the 13 other teams that didn’t make the playoffs — and new faces try to find their place on and off the ice.

And when you introduce a semi-new head coach into the equation, as the Jets will this week with Paul Maurice running his first camp, the sense of anticipation gets cranked up that much further.

What will a Paul Maurice camp look, smell and feel like when the Jets hit the ice for the first time on Friday?

“I won’t really know until that first day,” said Jets centre Bryan Little after an informal on-ice session Monday at the MTS Iceplex. “He explained to us (at the end of last season) that we are going to do a lot of skating and be a well-conditioned team and we’re going to work on that in training camp.

“I don’t know what that’s going to look like in terms of how practices are going to be, but it’s probably going to be up-tempo with a lot of skating. I guess we’ll see. I don’t think any team is out of shape in the NHL. We need every edge we can and if being one of the best-conditioned teams in the NHL helps, we’ll take it.”

Maurice made an immediate impact with the Jets when he took over and the team finished on an 18-12-5 run after he replaced Claude Noel. And having a full camp will be critical for him to hammer home a number of messages and re-establish an expectation level.

“That will be big, as far as just meetings and just getting your bearings,” said defenceman Zach Bogosian. “There was a lot of chaos going on last year when he came in. It’d be nice to approach things in a calm environment and just try to get ready for the season mentally and physically.

“When he walks into the room he has a presence. You really pay attention around him. I think he’s won the respect of the guys as far as the situation he came in last year… it wasn’t the easiest thing for him to walk into, taking on a team that was playing inconsistent and with all the other stuff that was going on with a coaching change. Guys are optimistic that way.”

Most of the Jets are already in town and will be joined by some of the team’s prospects, after the Young Stars tournament wrapped up Monday in Penticton. Monday’s session at the MTS Iceplex was broken into two groups that ran concurrently and featured a number of Jets, local NHLers such as Cody Eakin of the Dallas Stars and other pros.

But later this week it all begins for real. And, to a man, there’s an admitted different buzz about this camp — much of it because of Maurice and his expectations.

“It’s just the taste we had last year when he came in,” Little said. “It seemed different. There was a lot of optimism. It seemed like everyone liked him, not a single person said a bad thing about him, and liked his practices. He’s an intense guy and he brings that intensity every practice, every game.”

“That’s why everyone is so excited this year. We get to have a full year and a full training camp to get to know him and get to know his style a bit better.”

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @WFPEdTait