ND Hounds vs Swift Current Legionnaires

Had the pleasure now of being out to the hounds hockey shrine out in the middle of nowhere a few times now and have formed a few opinions of the place. The school is built around a winning tradition without a doubt, but also it's all about winning. The AAA players are the main guys on the campus and get the benefits of such, well the others are a mixture of turn key kids and good players but secondary non the less. Those other student/Athletes are the ones that fund the facility and if your a high end guy it's a great place but if your not I'm not so sure. If your a bit of a late bloomer or is still a little immature, it's by no means a good fit for you. Last year they had 21 goalie's tryout and room for only 14 in Midget hockey, so after they tried to farm a few out to other places, they had a number that didn't were no more than practice players through the year. Now that's gotta be tough coming from somewhere far away with dreams and hopes, and where at the very least you could have played at the AA level and be at home, that is pretty big reality check at a young age about how mercenary the hockey world can be.

Anyways you can figure it for yourself the program and form your own thoughts. Now last night's game, the ND student crowd attending were pretty loud and proud, rude about the behavior but that's pretty entertaining at times. Now the Legionnaires have been on the ice every day, prior to ice which includes a hard dry land so they get incredible amount of ice time and training being the secondary team in town to the bronc's. Regan Darby the head coach, pushes they hard and expects hard work in return. No question after watching last night's game ND Hounds will be one be one of the teams to beat this year, as always, but it was disappointing they needed some iffy calls in the third to bring them back in the game and it helped to have the ref's playing along. The Hounds are now getting down to their final team and have some real big boys especially on the back end and good speed up front, the game was fast and rough but with only one fight last night so not out of control. The Legion had a 4-2 lead going into the last 8 minutes and it looked good until the ref's brought out the golden whistle and the hounds tied it up on the ensuing power plays. The Legionnaires first line is made up of all returning 17 olds veterans, Laird, Froese, and Reinboldt, and they are all skilled, experienced guys. I would have to say on watching the last couple of games that the legion will be a top 6 club in a always strong AAA league this year. The Legion had Zac Mckay(fighting suspension), Mathew Bohua (injury), and Travis orr(injury) missing from the line up last night and all those guys are contributing players.

On a personal note, Sam( rookie) got the first legion goal on a juicy rebound off a Mathew Audette's shot. Sam's always been a dirty area goal scorer, so I'm hoping he stays good and dirty through the year. Next up, a return match with the hounds on Sunday at home.

few interesting stories to pass on about the players and the camp for you blog readers. Firstly, the Cowie twins(best penalty killers in the league) who have played for the red wings for the last three years missed the start of the camp due to having to bring the crops in on the farm. Farming commitments came first, and it has been a rough year for the farmers in Saskatchewan due to the weather. Those twins are no question of double value to both team and their parent's farms. Now the wings have a second set of brothers with an even more interesting story. The Adam's brothers, originally from Russia by way of Nashville, Tenn and have been playing for the Red wings for a couple of years. I got it from an excellent source who has his finger on the pulse, the skate guy, that these boys father was in the Russian Mafia and the mom left him and took the boys to the U.S.A...now this guy doesn't come across as the type to lay a pipeline of B.S.

The Red wings have a small army of loyal support staff, older retired gentleman and even some handicapped people around the club...which shows they are fully enmeshed in the local community and they take pride in wearing the colors. Now the camp started on Friday with 4 teams, they started chopping the numbers down on Saturday nite and by Sunday had 2 teams left...tough camp as they had two 2 hour sessions per day finishing up with the all star game on Monday. We were bunked out at the fantastic circle 6 motel a couple of blocks away from crescent pointe arena..living in style :) Weyburn really doesn't have many quality places to eat out at, the regular fast food joints mind you we did find a nice italian place after testing the greasy waters. The town is a friendly place, lots of trucks and roughnecks and signs of money from the oil industries located in the area.

The coaches and scouts keep everything close to cuff, the fact Sam made it to the all star game on Monday at his age was a strong indicator of how well he did. Quite a few fights, and lots of hitting through out the camp and as the average age at the camp was 19 some very big guys out there. Sam was run over a few times but as I have always mentioned, you have to show that you can bounce back and not let that affect you. He had a good camp and as it was a grind I was impressed with his work. Stay tuned as the Legionnaires are hosting the Edge Academy from Calgary this weekend in a weekend 3 game set. The Edge Academy prep team will be a good test for the legion.