One day away

Published 4:07 pm Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Less than 17 hours remaining before the first Tips take the ice for rookie training camp…..

I’m going to try something a little different this year, at least for the first day of camp. I’m going to try to do a more-or-less real-time update on the blog of what I see from the players on the ice. Now, this has a chance to fail miserably, given the fact I won’t easily be able to identify more than a handful of players. But we’ll see what I can do.

A few notes:

– Rookie training camp will be almost exclusively for 1991- and 1992-born players this year, with approximately 50 players taking part. All of Everett’s picks from this year’s bantam draft are scheduled to attend. The only 1991-born player who is being brought straight to main camp and thus won’t take part in rookie camp is defenseman Jeff Regier.

– Two players from plast year’s team who won’t be coming to camp this year are center Damir Alic and right wing Jesse Smyke. With the Tips having a glut of candidates for their three overage slots, Alic and Smyke were given their release during the summer.

– There was an informal skate at the EEC this afternoon, with a handful of prospects joining in with several vets and a few blasts from the past. Among the participants were the first three captains in Tips history: Bryan Nathe, Mitch Love and Torrie Wheat.