Cottonmouths 2011-12 Training Camp - Day 3

Day 3 was a pretty light one after the long day on Tuesday.  We only had one session, lasting about an hour and a half.  Once again, the pace was pretty brisk.  There was not too much contact, though, with tomorrow being a game day.  The guys worked on systems and did a lot of skating/passing/shooting drills, working on general skill level and repetition.  They're looking sharper each day.  Jerome has been shuffling lines around, both out of a desire to experiment with different line combinations and today out of necessity...Sam Bowles did not skate today.  He had a minor procedure to correct a nagging injury that has been bothering him.  No word yet on how long he'll be out, but he vows he won't miss a regular-season game.  I'm just not sure he'll have the final say on that one.

In any case, the boys are in high spirits and there's a lot of energy in this camp.  Some of it is nervous energy, as it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that we have 22 guys in camp and only 18 roster spots to go around.  Some of the guys will be going home after the weekend, and everybody wants to make sure it won't be them.  The competition is helping to bring out the best in the players, and that's good to see.

The practice ended with a game of Juice-Boy.  It's basically a shootout where each guy goes in turn until he scores.  The last guy to score has to bring a gatorade to each of the other guys on the team.  Today's "winner" was Brody Malek, but it was a heated battle to the end between him and Bret Tyler.

Morgan James makes an attempt on Andrew Loewen in Juice-Boy.

The lineup for today was as follows:

Forwards:

Braid      Hammond   Kinnunen

Hergott    MacDougall    Sullivan

Moore            Lind          Berube

Wall         James

Defense:

Tyler        Barlow

Cianfrini    Maldonado

Krelove       Kessler

Malek

Goalies:

Vigier     Loewen

This will likely be my last blog until the weekend.  We have a game tomorrow night in the Columbus Ice Rink against the Knoxville Ice Bears, then we travel to Knoxville on Friday to play the Bears on their home turf.  I doubt I'll have time to blog after the games, but I'll do a wrapup of the weekend on Sunday or Monday.