Roster set for Muskie boys

Lucas Punkari

Although their first game isn’t until a tournament in Dryden at the end of October, the makeup of this year’s Muskie boys’ hockey squad has been decided after a week of tryouts at the Ice For Kids Arena.
Following four-consecutive days of inter-squad match-ups, the coaching staff was able to whittle down the roster to the 21 players who will be wearing the black-and-gold this winter as the team vies for another trip to the all-Ontarios.
“It’s always those last few cuts that are the hardest to make when you finish up the camp,” noted Muskie head coach Shawn Jourdain.
“Like I always say, that’s the hardest part of the year for us when doing that because you have to live with what you choose,” he reasoned.
“But we are quite happy with what we have, to be honest with you.”
Many members from last year’s squad, which captured the NorWOSSA crown but then went winless at OFSAA, either graduated from Fort High or, in the case of now Fort Frances Lakers’ forward Colton Spicer, moved on to other teams.
As such, this year’s roster will end up being a younger one, with only eight players returning to the fold.
“Those young guys all work hard and do what we ask of them,” Jourdain stressed.
“The thing that we want them to do during the year is to get better at all aspects of the game, and hopefully they will put up a fight against the rest of the league this season, along with the rest of our roster,” he added.
While Jourdain was pleased with the new faces, and happy with how the returning players performed, one newcomer really caught his eye.
“I was really impressed with Nolan Vold’s play,” Jourdain lauded. “He came into camp in really good shape and he was putting pucks into the net.
“He was someone who was a defenceman before converting into a forward last year, so we were quite happy to see him.”
The full roster won’t be making the trek to the Dryden tournament in late October because a few players will be finishing up their seasons with the Muskie football and volleyball squads.
Still, Jourdain and the rest of his coaching staff will be working hard prior to the opener to make sure the team is ready to go once NorWOSSA play gets underway.
“The main thing for now is just to get the guys back into skating shape,” he remarked.
“We’ll be starting on dryland training with everybody the week after next, and from there we will start to get into the systems that we plan to run this year.
“It’s all about working hard to get better at this point of the season, and that’s exactly what we are going to do,” Jourdain vowed.