The Fort Frances High School Muskie Girls hockey team will be looking to get to the Ontario provincial championship tournament for the first time in several years as Jordan Larson steps into head coaching after serving as an assistant coach with Shane Bliss for the last two years.
Stepping into the role Larson said working with Bliss has made it easy.
“I’m loving it, it’s been good so far,” Larson said. “The last couple of years I was able to learn from a great hockey mind and a great Muskie coach, Shane has been doing it for years, he coached the boys team for years and then he came to the girls side and was coaching the Muskie girls for years. He was a great person to learn from.”
While he was able to learn from Bliss, Larson says he is putting his own stamp on the team as well.
“Obviously we’re very different, and I’ve implemented my own different styles to the game and things like that,” Larson said. “Heading into this year we have such a great group, it’s easy. We have countless leaders in the dressing room, which makes my job easy. It’s fun to come to the rink every day with them and work hard.”
Larson’s work with members of the team as head coach started last summer with the availability of ice time at Ice For Kids arena sometimes twice per week in July and August players from throughout the region including some from as far away as Kenora and other areas closer to Fort Frances attended.
“I thought it was great obviously, overall, for every kid in Fort Frances, I think hockey is such a big sport, and to be able to play throughout the summer time is awesome,” Larson said. “I wish that that could have been done when I was playing hockey. We had great numbers throughout, from the girls in grade seven to girls that were moving on to graduate and play college hockey, and that only helps them. They can see the level that the girls that are in college are going to college play at.”
Larson added that the summer ice definitely made a difference when it came time for tryouts.
“When we got down to the tryouts, the tryouts were super fast,” Larson said. “The girls were in shape, and they were moving pucks. It was a very, very competitive tryout, and I think that’s only benefited us right now. We’re not starting from day one, right? Because the girls have been skating, so I’ve been able to implement new systems right away, instead of trying to get their legs under them, which has been really nice.”
Larson says the team is made up of a variety of age levels, not heavy on seniors but leaning more on players at other age levels.
“We have a mix, we only have four grade 12s and there’s three grade nines so the rest are kind of up and down,” Larson said. “We’re fairly young I would say but I think everyone’s gelling well.”
The team features four grade 12s, four grade 11s, five grade 10s and three grade nines, Larson said the team has gone with a shortened bench this year in an effort to give players more ice time.
“We went with three lines and five defenders and there’s lots of ice time for the girls and they’re working hard to be in shape,” he said.
The team went 5-0 en route to its first tournament win of the year the last weekend of October.
“We’re coming together quite quickly, it’s been really good,” Larson said. “A lot of positives right now. We worked really hard, I think we’re kind of finding what works or makes us successful as a team and that’s nice to see so early on in the season.”
Larson says roadtrips like the tournament in Winnipeg are key to developing team building.
“I really liked that Winnipeg tournament just for the sole reason that we can get on a bus, the girls are in a hotel and we’re gelling as a team,” Larson said. “Throughout that weekend you could see them become tighter and tighter, which is good to see.”
The Muskie girls have a busy season upcoming with games in the US against teams from Minnesota which Larson says are key to developing the mental toughness it takes to get to OFSAA.
“We’re going to play Minnesota high school teams starting on Friday, we play East Grand Forks on Friday and Detroit Lakes on Saturday, throughout the month of November we play seven American teams including the Falls,” Larson said. “Those teams, they’re aggressive, they battle hard and my message right now is that we’ve got to match their intensity and I think we’ve done pretty well at dealing with adversity. At times in Winnipeg, there were times where teams really pressed us and made us play in the defensive zone and we could have folded the tent and we just didn’t. We stuck with the game plan and worked it through, those are the games you want to be in. You want to be in tight games, so later on in the year when it’s the playoffs we know how to win those close games.”
The NorWOSSA season was set to begin next Tuesday with a matchup between the Muskies and the Beaver Brae Broncos, but the closure of ‘52 Canadians Arena may impact the schedule as the Muskies are unable to host two games simultaneously in the same building as they traditionally do. The girls are set to play their first game of the year against International Falls across the border on Nov. 21.
