PG Cougars president Greg Pocock – photo 250 News

Prince George, B.C. – The Prince George Cougars are busily preparing for the return of the New Ice Age.

Team president Greg Pocock says the organization has been going “flat out” and “running hard” during the off-season beginning with the team’s new logo launch in the spring followed by the NHL draft in Florida – something he says turned out to be the “experience of a lifetime.”

“I went down there really as much as a fan as anything and it turned out to be a huge educational process for me,” he says.

“Learning how some of the more successful teams, specifically the Portland Winterhawks, Oshawa Generals, Tri-City Americans and Everett Silvertips work that draft to get access to interviewing European players ahead of the European draft, to dealing with agents and obviously networking through the Canadian Hockey League and the NHL. It was a very valuable experience and something we’re going to be able to build on.”

Pocock says it also afforded him the chance to sit down and chat with his boyhood idol, Bobby Orr.

“All Bobby Orr wanted to talk about was how’s it going with the Cougars? how’s your fan base? how’s the attendance going? So when you meet in my opinion, the greatest player of all-time and all he wants to talk about is the Prince George and the Cougars, it reaffirms to me we’re on the right track.”

He adds there’s still plenty of work to come. “Training camp is the end of August, we’ve got our hockey school just ahead of that,” says Pocock. “Other logistics around bringing our European players here to attend our hockey school, as well as the travel plans for the players coming back are all in place.”

And then there’s the Vancouver Canucks training camp scheduled for mid-September. “So we’re meeting with them on an ongoing basis and a committee involving the City of Prince George and other involved parties and trying to put on an event here that the Canucks will be well represented and proud of their decision to come to Prince George.”

As for the coming year, Pocock says expectations are high following a season where they made the playoffs and played rival Victoria hard (but ultimately lost) in the first round.

“There’s a lot we can take from that,” he says. “We’re going to have a good team this year. We are really excited about the group that we have and we expect to go several rounds into the playoffs this year.”

Pocock adds having four players drafted in June (Jansen Harkins, Brad Morrison, Sam Ruopp, Tate Olson) will help steer the team towards its goals.

“I think they’re (drafted players) all motivated. You can run two risks, the player comes back with a bit of a swollen head or a player comes back motivated,” he says. “And the guys that got drafted, I don’t see any issues with any of them. If anything I think it will only be a motivator.”