Lucas Punkari
A squad of 20 players have been chosen to defend the NorWOSSA boys’ hockey title for Fort High this winter, as the 2012/13 Muskies roster was decided on Thursday night at the ’52 Canadians Arena following four days of tryouts.
“The week of practice was pretty good and we’re pretty excited as a staff with the kids that we are taking this year,” head coach Shaun Jourdain said.
“We’re all looking forward to getting things rolling here, and we’re also hoping to take them all the way again,” he added.
This year’s squad will see 12 players returning from last year’s league champions in addition to eight newcomers to the high school ranks, as the black-and-gold look to return to all-Ontario championships yet again.
“I think we are a little bit stronger with our overall goaltending this year, and we might be even better with our forwards once again,” Jourdain noted.
“We do have a little bit of work that we will have to do with the defense going forward, but overall, I think we have a pretty solid team,” he stressed.
With their first game of the regular season not taking place until a home date here on Tuesday, Nov. 13 against the Dryden Eagles, Jourdain and the rest of the coaching staff will be hard at work getting the team in tip-top form prior to the start of a new campaign.
“Once we have the team picked, we usually have a bit of a layoff until the first week of October before we get going again here,” Jourdain noted.
“The biggest thing will be to get the guys into shape prior to the start of the season, along with having a lot of the kids learn the systems and things like that.
“Then we will start to get more of an idea on what we will need to do and work on for the rest of the year,” he added.
The NorWOSSA regular season will conclude on Thursday Feb. 14, with the playoffs getting underway five days later.
This year’s OFSAA ‘A/AA’ championships are scheduled to be held from March 19 to 22 in Barrie and Alliston.
