On the Road Again...

On the Road Again…

Just driving through Indiana on the way to Minnesota, and thought that I’d put my blog up a day earlier than scheduled. After returning home a mere 36 hours ago, we are right back on the road for 13 hours going up to the NAHL Showcase… not an easy task, but it is exciting nonetheless. Anyway, there will be plenty more to read in the coming days, as I will be putting a brief game summary up on the website shortly after each game, and then will have a full weekend wrap-up for you on Sunday or Monday. In addition to previews and features as well, I think this will remain the plan for the whole season.

Four games in four days. An increased chance of injury due to fatigue. And, bigger and deeper teams – Those are the challenges facing the Phantoms in Blaine, Minnesota.

Despite the continued absence of Hirschfeld and Washnock, due to illness and injury respectively, the team remained healthy through the pre-season. Besides getting a good warm up for NAHL play, I’m sure this was one of the goals of the coaching staff for last weekend.

With only one day of practice (Monday) this week before setting out for the road, it gave neither the players nor the coaches a chance to work on anything specific that might need to have been improved upon from New Jersey. It goes without saying (almost) that it gave them no time to prepare for the unique challenges of each opponent either.

The boys worked up a good sweat yesterday, and had a full practice instead of the usual Monday practice where the team splits up into groups on both sheets of ice to work on skills rather than systems.

The Showcase will help answer a lot of questions. As coach Mainhardt said in his interview for today’s article, every team is going into this week thinking they have a championship caliber team… This showcase will really help all teams discover how they stack up against the entire NAHL as opposed to just their division, which will be what we’ll be playing for the rest of the season.

In trying to incorporate everyone into the game plan last weekend, it was great seeing some of the rookies get off to such a successful start. Even with so many quality returners, the rookies are going to play a major role in the team’s success this year. So, this week, we’ll be able to see which of these newcomers will be consistent enough to earn playing time this year.

We’ll also get to see the emergence of a starting goaltender as well. As a former goaltender, I’m excited to see who plays / plays best this week.

The season has been shortened to 58 games this year, this means only 29 home dates for each team, and really only 27, considering two “home games” will be played this weekend in Minnesota. Just like last season, the Phantoms will begin with a whole bunch of games on the road. So, a quick start this year, will obviously be a huge boost considering a majority of the second half of the season will be played in the friendly confines of the Ice Zone, and helping us in pushing towards the playoffs.

Enough written here. My computer is starting to run low on battery, and I need to be getting busy on a few other things. More from Minnesota on the website tomorrow afternoon after the game against the Express. It should be up between 7 or 8 pm.