Photo Credit: Shane Clausing

By Shane Clausing

Grande prairie storm

Storm ready to open training camp August 29

Aug 26, 2021 | 2:12 PM

Members of the Grande Prairie Storm are gearing up to begin their 2021-22 AJHL training camp on Sunday, August 29 at the downtown arena.

Coming into this season the Storm will have just 13 returning players from the 2010-21 season, including an entirely new group of goaltenders.

Storm Head Coach and General Manager Mike Vandekamp tells EverythingGP because of the lack of hockey played over the last year and a half, this year’s training camp will feel a lot like camps from back in the day.

“There will be a lot of new faces, it’ll probably be a bit more of an old-fashioned camp too,” said Vandekamp. “I think there’s been a lot less decisions that have been made prior to camp than would be the case for probably the past five or ten years.”

Because of the lack of hockey for a majority of the players coming into camp this year, Vandkamp says his staff will be more open to seeing what type of talent is out there.

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“Things really changed in recent years where we were signing players a lot earlier to our rosters with plenty of knowledge. You’d see the kids play numerous times throughout the year, sign them to your team and basically go into main camp with small numbers because you pretty much knew what your team was going to look like,” he said.

“This year, it’s a little bit different because there was a real lack of hockey last season. Even though we’ve signed some players and have some returning players, we’re a little bit more open-minded this year because the sample size is much more limited than what it has been.”

Between 33-34 players have been invited to main camp according to Vandekamp. The roster will get trimmed down to 23-24 by the time the season starts on September 17.

Members of the Storm will see their first game action on September 3 for the annual Brian Nash game. They’ll then begin their exhibition schedule on September 4 at home against the Olds Grizzlys.

During the exhibition schedule, the AJHL will be experimenting with a new overtime format.

The new format being tried out by all AJHL teams will consist of a six-minute sudden victory period starting with 3-on-3 play, then moving to 2-on-2 at the first whistle after the 4:00 minute mark, and to 1-on-1 at the first whistle after the 2:00 minute mark. If the score remains tied after overtime a best-of-three shootout will follow.

When asked about the overtime format, Vandekamp expressed that he’s not a fan of it.

“It’s just an experiment for exhibition, so it’s not an overtime format that’s being adopted, and I’ll just say thankfully.”

Heading into training camp the Storm also received some good news as Hudson Foley has been cleared to skate and play for the club this season.

On October 31 last season, Foley suffered a broken vertebrae. The injury caused him to miss a significant amount of time and go through an intense rehabilitation process.

Vandekamp says he’s happy to see Foley able to get back to playing for the club.

“Hudson’s ready to go, he worked really hard all of last year. He was doing some skating with us at the end of last season. This summer he had to work hard to build his body back a little bit more and get back into some contact, but he’s one-hundred per cent by all accounts,” he said.

“He’s a really important player for our team and he brings a lot to the table for us. That was a tough injury for a first-year player, but he worked hard at it.”

Daily updates on Storm camp can be found on their social media feeds.