Training Camp - Day Two

11:00pm - The quick update to wrapup day two at the main camp is to let you know that there are no undefeated teams or teams looking for their first win. In the last game of the day, Team Red took on the camp leading Team Grey squad and found a way to end their winning ways with an impressive 11-3 victory. The big goal scorer in that game was Adam Baldassarre with a total of four goals.

In the earlier evening scrimmage, Team White improved to a 2-1 record with a 6-3 victory over Team Blue who dropped to a 1 and 2 record. Goal scorers for Team White were RJay Berra with three, Van Imoo, James Cannon and Tyson Witala. Colten Derickson, Jeff Datoff and Joe Morgan tallied for Team Blue.

Back to the late game and the goal scorers starting with Team Grey - Steven Powers picked up one and Brooks Robinson picked up their other two. Besides the four goals by Baldassarre, Team Red also got scoring production from Clayton McEwan, Adrian Moyls, Kalen Spoletini, Justin Fillion, Jeff Earnest and Jeremy Wiebe with a pair.

6:00pm - The fitness testing is done and the boys did pretty good. Mike Webber and Gibby Chasse of X-Condition put everybody through their paces with two passes at a 20 metre sprint, a 20 metre pro-agility test and the ever popular beep test also over a twenty metre distance.

Although there was no Usain Bolt on the track at Masich Place Stadium, the average across the board in the sprint was in the low 3 second mark. Scanning the numbers, the best run was Geoff Morgan at 2.78; but get this, both Morgan twins registered identical 2.81 times in their first run throughs. Geoff bested his brother Joe in the second run by a margin of 12/100th of a second. The other interesting thing to remember about the twins is that they aren't on the same team so they did the identical times an hour apart.

With only five minutes between the first and second sprint for each player, there isn't much time for the body to fully recover making the second run that much more difficult to improve upon. One player that did improve significantly the second time through was Andrew Pickering who shaved almost three tenths of a second off his first time - the best improvement out of anyone on the day.

The pro-agility test was a test of lateral explosion with quick stops and two reverses over the twenty metre testing strip. The players started as if in a sprinters block with their opposite hand on a pylon in front of them and then had to explode sprinting either to their left or to their right, braking and touching a pylon before reversing to sprint the full 20 metres to the opposite pylon and then back again through the starting point.

The average for this test was in the mid eight second mark with only two players doing better than eight seconds. Sam Muchalla won this event with a time of 7.90 followed by Joe Morgan with a mark of 7.97. Wes McLeod finished third with an identical time of 8.00 in both directions. From my perspective, footwear was a contributing factor in this event with the explosive starts, quick stops and the reverse explosions on the cork track saw a few guys lose their grip and resulted in a few blowouts.

Truth be told, I have never done the beep test and have no idea where I would finish in this gruelling test that requires the athlete to pace themselves through ever increasing time intervals. It starts out at a bit better than a walking pace over a 20 metre distance with timed beeps indicated when the athlete has to reverse direction. If a runner fails to reach the pylon for the turn twice in a row, the runner is done and will register a score based on the level they completed successfully.

In the beep test it seems that getting inside level 10 is the bench mark as this is when it starts getting tougher to pace yourself so that there isn't much of a wait time at either end of the 20 metre expanse. The majority of players were done before reaching level 11 and the early benchmark was level 13-7 set by Andrew Pickering. Only three players could best that mark with Chris Solecki and Jesse Scrimbit reaching level 14-0 and Evan Smith reaching level 13-13. By the way, Solecki and Smith are both goaltenders, which maybe doesn't come as much of a surprise as this position requires players to be able to match the tempo of the game for the full sixty minutes without the benefit of a line change.

1:30pm - Second scrimmage of the morning is now done putting four games into the books at the 2009-10 Spruce Kings main camp. This game featured Team Grey and Team Blue who were both 1 and 0 heading in. After the sixty minutes were up it is Team Grey that came out on top with an 8-3 victory to improve to 2 and 0 record.

Team Grey opened the scoring and never looked back with period leads of 3-1, 6-2 and of course 8-3. Leading the way again in this game was Nick DeSousa with a pair of goals and a pair of helpers. Rounding out the scoring for Team Grey was Dylan DeSousa, Brooks Robinson, Steven Powers, Tyson Hall, Luke Hannas and Geoff Morgan. Team Blue got scoring from Josh Pineiro, Nick Beisher and Joe Morgan.

While I did miss most of this game, listening to the scouts afterwards it sounds like Brooks Robinson scored the highlight goal of the game. After picking up the puck at the top of the defensive zone, Robinson skated through a couple of stick checks and then split the 'D' before beating Team Blue's first goaltender of the game. The line of Robinson, Hall and DeSousa have been causing the most amount of grief for the opposition and Team Red will have to shut down that line later tonight if they want any chance of picking up their first win.

11:15am - The third game scrimmage of the main camp was what I expected as far as intensity and competiitiveness, but unfortunately for Team Red, they suffered the same fate as their first game. They looked good early on and were controlling the game well pressuring the 'D' and getting shots towards the net, but it would be Team White that would open the scoring.

The first goal of the game was the result of some good pressure by the Team White forwards to cause a turnover and then, with traffic in front of the net, slip one through. Team Red did not quit and would score the next three goals to take a 3-1 lead as result of their good puck movement and shots on goal. After giving up those three in a row, Team White would get three of their own to put Team Red down by one again.

The go ahead goal was the result of some excellent puck movement while on the powerplay and then a bullet shot from the high slot by returning defenceman, Wes McLeod. Yes it is true, McLeod will be on the Spruce Kings roster for the 2009-10 seasaon. McLeod sees this year as the best opportunity for him to get ice time and develop more as a solid defenceman. On a side note, I will have his story on the Spruce Kings website, but it will have to wait unilt after camp wraps up.

Back to the game, Team Red would tie it up once more with a quick powerplay goal of their own before the end of the second period. The knife in the side of Team White would come just twelve seconds later and then they would add another early in the third and never looked back.

Goal scorers for Team Red were Kalen Spoletini and Jeff Earnest, Adam Baldassarre scored the power play marker and Andrew Pickering tallied a pair. For Team White, RJay Berra opened the scoring and would add three more including the game winner and insurance marker. As mentioned earlier, Wes McLeod scored that beauty on the powerplay and added one other while Jordan Wood and Sam Muchalla would add singles.

Both teams will now get ready for their fitness testing at Masich Place Stadium beginning at 1:30 with Team Red followed by Team White at 2:30. Team Grey and Team Blue will follow, but right now they are on the ice in the fourth game scrimmage of the camp.

8:30am - The Coliseum is coming alive again for the second day of training camp. Today will feature a total of four scrimmages (two for each team) and fitness testing. With the first day jitters and travel legs out of the way, today should produce a little more intensity and maybe bring out some more competitive rivalry. I will be behind the bench with Adrien Chabot once again for Team Red in the first game of the day at 9:00am.