It’s a real bit of down time for the Kings right now. While most of the league continues with the exhibition schedule, the Kings are hitting the ice daily, fine tuning their preparations for the season in practice. Since I arrived on Tuesday, today was the first practice I had gotten the opportunity to watch for any length of time.
It was also the first practice in a while with the full squad (minus a couple of injuries), as Head Coach/GM Kent Lewis and the five WJAC tryout players (Maguire, Richardson, Waugh, Paddock, Scarth) returned yesterday from Hockey Canada’s camp.
One highlight from the practice was Kent trying to enrage defenceman Taylor Carmola during a 3vs3 battle drill, by saying that rookie Jarryd Leung (who was Carmola’s partner for the drill) had been bad mouthing him on twitter. Of course it was all a joke…I’m fairly certain Kent doesn’t use twitter, but it showed that the team is having fun, and all the hard work in games and practices also comes with a bit of humour and enjoyment.
After practice, 4 players stayed behind and played golf. I think they were (and I’m sorry if I’m wrong), Jarryd Leung, Matt Scarth, Teagan Waugh and Steve Schmidt. Lining up putts on the ice was pretty funny, and there were some good waggles going on too. Scarth I think won, at least what I saw.
Tomorrow the team practices again, and we are under 1 week away from the home opener against Nanaimo. That game goes from the Hap at 7:30pm. If you can’t be there, I’ll have the game on SunFM. There, and only there, will you be able to enjoy some of the intermission entertainment I have planned this year. But more on that later, for now I will say, that while compiling these features for the intermissions, I’ve found out that Dan Schuler apparently sings like an angel. Let’s just leave that one there.
See you at the Hap!!!
