(Photo: MOB players listen to Head Coach Tom Keca on August, 27, 2015 at the Casman Centre during training camp. Bradley Karp / REPORTER)
There isn’t much downtime in the off-season for a Junior ‘A’ hockey coach. While his players are taking a break from the rigours of the regular season Oil Barons Head Coach Tom Keca and his staff are spending time scouring Alberta for players that may one day don the Blue and Gold.
While in the past the Oil Barons may have held just a single spring camp in Edmonton, this year the MOB have had enough interest from young players to hold two, one in the Capital city the other in Calgary.
The MOB had about 75 kids on the ice in Edmonton this past weekend and look forward to seeing at least 50 more beginning Friday in Calgary.
“We were really impressed with some of the talent we saw on the ice this weekend,” said Keca. “We felt the need to identify a strong group of [19]99s and 2000s that will form the core of our team in a few years.”
Keca gave his scouts an order to reach out to as many kids as possible this year and he feels they delivered. In previous years the team may have only had 50 or 60 kids register for the spring camp, this year Keca and his coaching staff will evaluate at least double that number.
It’s all part of a process that Keca and his staff will pay dividends years down the line as the club tries to continue the rebuilding process. The MOB hopes that process will be accelerated by five players due to the club via future considerations through trades made earlier this season. The players coming to McMurray won’t be announced until Jun.1 at the earliest and they’ll get a chance to showcase themselves during the MOB’s summer camp in July.
