Spruce Kings Camp Opens Today

By 250 Sports

The Prince George Spruce Kings open up their main training camp today for an expected sixty players looking for a spot on the 2009/10 team roster. Registration for returning and new players gets underway at noon inside the Prince George Coliseum. Following the check-in process, players will be assigned to one of four teams for practices, scrimmages and fitness testing.

The Spruce Kings main camp is highly competitive with a series of fitness tests that are used to measure the athletes conditioning and strength coming into camp. Players will also compete in game like scenarios with a series of scrimmages against the other teams. Each of the main camp teams will be comprised of approximately fifteen players.

"We identified about sixty players from our Spring Camp," said Spruce Kings assistant general manager, Mike Hawes. "We like to keep our numbers small for this camp and that's the benefit of the Spring Camp. It's going to be highly competitive with three days of camp with lots of games scheduled in."

On Sunday afternoon select players will be assigned to either the Blue team or the White team for the Annual Intra Squad game. The Blue White game is open to the public for just two dollars beginning at 3:00pm on Sunday afternoon. The main camp will then close and the team will then prepare for the Exhibition Season that begins on Tuesday.

"This is another example of how competitive the schedule is," points out Hawes. "We come out of camp after three competitive days with a practice on Monday, another practice Tuesday and then a game right away Tuesday night against Quesnel. That's good for us because we start bonding as a team right away."

The preseason schedule opens with the Spruce Kings hosting the Quesnel Millionaires on September 1st at 7:00pm in the Prince George Coliseum. On Wednesday both teams will then head to Smithers for a neutral site exhibition game beginning at 7:00pm in the Smithers Civic Centre. The  preseason will then wrap up with a home-at-home series against the Williams Lake Timberwolves starting on Friday night in the Stampede City and concluding on Saturday night in the Castle.

Complete camp schedule is available from the Spruce Kings website at www.sprucekings.bc.ca

Email | Print | Facebook | Twitter | Digg | Del.icio.us