Storm Head Coach and General Manager Mike Vandekamp speaks to his team during practice at Revolution Place on Thursday, November 12. (Photo Credit: Shane Clausing)

By Shane Clausing

STORM

Grande Prairie Storm gear up for unprecedented AJHL season

Nov 13, 2020 | 12:03 PM

The last time the Grande Prairie Storm played a meaningful game on Revolution Place ice was on March 10, when the Storm fell 4-0 to the Spruce Grove Saints in Game 6 of the first round of the AJHL playoffs.

After months of the AJHL’s Development Season and lots of uncertainty, the Storm will finally drop the puck on their 2020-21 regular season on November 13 against the Bonneville Pontiacs.

“We’ve been going at this now since the start of September. We’ve had a lot of practices, we’ve had eight exhibition games, so I think we are all excited about playing games that matter in the standings,” said Storm Head Coach and General Manager Mike Vandekamp.

“It’s a lot different this year. A lot of the times when you’re starting the regular season, your game is maybe not where it should be, the nerves will be at a peak, this year is different in so many ways. We are ahead of the game for a start of a season and I think it’s important for our players to come in with confidence.”

The Storm finished their pre-season schedule with a 6-2 record and are looking to have a bounce back season after they finished the 2019-20 regular season on a 15-game winless streak.

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Since the team was knocked out of the playoffs last season, the Storm locker room has seen a lot of change.

The changes started back in April when the Storm decided to hire Vandekamp as the club’s new Head Coach and General Manager.

Vandekamp coached the Storm from 2007-2011 and helped lead the club in 2009-2010 to the AJHL Championship.

This offseason, Vandekamp was busy when it came to finding new players and making tough decisions.

There is only seven full-time players from 2019-20 listed on the Storm’s opening night roster. The rest of the players are all new and come from towns and cities from across Canada.

One of the most familiar veterans in the dressing room is Bonanza-product Lukas Konashuk, who is entering his third season with the Storm organization. He says that seeing all the new faces in the dressing room is a welcome addition.

“It’s definitely nice having a whole new squad, new coaches and new everything. It’s a great atmosphere now. All the boys are humming, it’s a great time out there. We’ve been winning games lately too, so that helps and we are all really excited to get out there.”

Some of those new additions include four players from the Western Hockey League (WHL).

Paycen Bjorklund, Edge Lambert, Garin Bjorklund and Sasha Mutala will all dawn the Storm uniform until at least December 20, after the WHL granted permission to their players to get loaned to AJHL teams until their season starts.

Vandekamp tells EverythingGP that so far through the pre-season games, they have fit in quite well.

“I think almost every team in our league has added some dynamic of guys who’ve played in the Western Hockey League before and I think it’s really important for us to almost separate those two things now.”

“These players are on our team here and they are a part of our club and they are no different than anyone else on our team. I think that the expectations of them are the same as any other player. They try to learn to be structured, play with good habits and play hard every night and they’ve done a good job of that.”

Both the Bjorklund brothers and Lambert hail from the Grande Prairie area. Lambert tells EverythingGP that while there are some differences between the WHL and AJHL, both leagues are very competitive.

“It’s still quite a hard league to play in and everyone is going. Intensity is high and everyone is eager, so that’s probably part of the reason, but everyone is ready to get back going.”

As for the how the team will look on the ice, Vandekamp said that he likes what he has seen from his team so far.

“We can win, they weren’t all pretty, but we found ways to win games. We still need to work a lot on our structure and habits within our games, but we’ve been able to score some goals when we need to, our special teams have been pretty good.”

“We work hard, we’ve got a really good spirit about us, we’ve got a lot of passion in our game and that was something that we wanted to have from day one. We would play hard every game and be harder to play against and so far, I think we’ve seen that through exhibition.”

Vandekamp tells EverythingGP that the team is still experimenting with the lines to find out which players will work best together. He adds that it’ll be interesting to see what the Bonnyville Pontiacs will bring to the table this weekend.

“You watch a little bit of tape… and it’s exhibition hockey and it’s so early in the process that you don‘t really know a lot about your opponent, which is fine with me. I’m not a real big guy on worrying too much about our opponent. I think we have so much work to do on our own game right now, we’ll probably be a lot more focused on our own game right now.”

“I think what I’ve noticed so far is that most of the teams in our league have players that have played on their team before. I think therefore they should have a head start on their structure and the way that they want to play as a team. There’s eight really competitive teams in our division so it should make for really good hockey.”

The Storm will also be without Hudson Foley for at least three months with an injury that he suffered in their second exhibition game against Fort McMurray.

Puck drop for Friday and Saturday nights games against Bonnyville are both at 7:00 p.m. The game is still on despite the new COVID-19 restrictions put in place by the provincial government.