Day Three

Sorry for the delay between posts this time; I've been at the arena more than in my own apartment lately, and that's where I usually blog.

Meanwhile, things are still going great at camp; Ryan James Hand arrived yesterday and started skating with the team this morning, and Darryl Smith and Vincent Zaore-Vanie got here at about 2 a.m. today and joined the team for afternoon practice.

I've been speaking a lot to coach about the rookies he brought in for this season, and he's had nothing but good things to say so far. My story in tomorrow's paper will focus on the rookies and what they are going to have to do to stick around for the rest of the season.

As I mentioned, the first-year guys are getting rave reviews from coach, and they all seem pretty pleased with their own progress, as well.

I spoke to each of the 15 rookies between yesterday's afternoon practice and the two practices today just to get a feel for what they think of Laredo and what they believe they can do for this team.

Obviously, 15 interviews (plus a couple with Coach and some questions about the rookies I asked Jeff Bes before he left yesterday) result in a lot of leftover quotes, so I will try to get some of those up here tomorrow.

Today's afternoon practice was a 4-on-4 scrimmage, with players divided into two teams as follows:

White Jerseys: Serge Dube, Ryan Fuller, Jeff Gilbert, Erick Lizon, Joey Moggach, Amory Mudrewich, Jordan Pawelec, Bobby Russell, Smith, Matt Summers and Steve Weidlich.

Black Jerseys: Igor Agarunov, Jason Dixon, Devin Featherstone, Alex Goupil, Hand, Brett Hopfe, Kevin Hurley, Shaun Norrie, Mike Richard, Adam Rivet and Zaore-Vanie.

The goalies swapped throughout the contest, which was a very fast-paced, intense showing from both sides.

Smith impressed in his first round with two goals and some great puck handling, while Lizon managed to poke the puck past Centomo at one point and scored again on a slapshot from near center ice.

Coach also seemed to be impressed by Hand, who is making it pretty clear how tough he is and intends to keep that up tomorrow night during the preseason game.

Here's his take on the scrimmage:

"We only had four lines, so instead of going the full 5-on-5, we gave them a little more time to rest and went 4-0n-4. It gives them a chance to skate a little bit, pass, skate a little bit more because there's more room to skate out there. We've been going over drills and systems, so that we try to proceed into the game. I just thought it would be time now that we'd try to play more, get more acclimated to game kind of conditions.

"I thought it was good. There were some points I thought obviously we're going to have to work on to get ready for the season, but I think the intensity was there. There are some fast skaters on that team, which I really liked. They moved the puck adequately today, I think for the first time doing it. We can get better at that aspect, too. A good pass makes for a goal-scoring opportunity, and a bad pass makes for a back-checking opportunity, so we have to make sure we're a good passing team but also play together and move the puck and play position.

"All in all, I thought it was not bad."

Now, all that remains to be seen is if the players can carry everything they've learned over to a real game...well, a preseason game, anyway.

Bes obviously will not be playing tomorrow, as mentioned previously, and a couple of the other returning guys will probably also sit the game out. Goalie-wise, Mike Collichio and Ryan Gibb are expected to split the time, but Coach will use Centomo at some point during the preseason.

I think that's going to about do it for now, but I'll be checking out the morning skate tomorrow, which should let out early, so I'll try to post some more when I get back from that.

Oh, and here is my story from today's Times. It's just a brief note about how camp is going so far and the meetings between the CHL owners and the PHPA that began today.