Tavistock Braves Ready for the Upcoming Hockey Season

Sunday, 26 July 2015 11:23

The team may be filled with young players but Coach Petrie knows they will be competitive

OXFORD COUNTY - As the end summer is still two months away it is never to early to get ready for the upcoming hockey season. The schedule has been released for the Midwestern Junior Hockey League that has 9 teams and 3 are located within Oxford County who are ready to get back on the ice. Head Coach for the Tavistock Braves, Jamie Petrie, talks about his clubs chances when the season begins. "We will be young again we were competitive last year, we were around 500 hockey. We will continue to strive to be a contending team, we are not their yet, it is just being patient with our group. We are confident in some of the guys we're starting to get momentum, and hopefully we become a destiny for kids to come."

As play doesn't begin until mid-September training sessions for all three teams will dominate much of August for certain teenagers. Petrie, discuses how their organization attempts to recruit potential players. "We feel we are competitive with all the teams, we go out and recruit, same as any other team. We're open to kids who want to try Junior C hockey through our mini camp, we advance kids to our main camp which will probably have between 40-50 kids in our main camp. Through our exhibition games we'll go from their to start the season on September 11th in Delhi." With age restrictions on players put into place by the series, Petrie is hopeful that a transition period will start to take place to see their club be as competitive other organizations in the league.

Petrie, knows the age of the players may slow the team down but they will be ready to play hard once the puck drops. "We're excited to get rocking and it's wide open! We're excited about our top defence man coming back, we got our goaltender, and top two scorers coming back, so we're just going to continue the process. Whether it is this year which I don't believe it is, but in a couple of years we'll be ready to make our push." As a warm up to the season the Tavistock will host a 2 day exhibition series against a team from Detroit at the end of August. Heart FM is waiting to hear back from the Woodstock Navy Vets and Norwich Merchants as they are the other two teams in the County ready to play 40 games each this season.