Meet-and-greet time as Blades prepare to open training camp
Mitch Love is preparing to cast fresh and curious eyes from player to player, corner to corner, stick to stick.
The Saskatoon Blades’ new head coach said opportunities abound at the team’s upcoming training camp, because he has no prior history with the squad. There are no pre-conceived notions.
“It’s a fresh start for a lot of these guys,” said Love, whose Blades open training camp Saturday and hit the ice for the first time on Sunday.
“I don’t know a lot of them from a hole in the wall, but it’s an opportunity. If they don’t like some things that went on here in the past for them personally, it’s a new opportunity, a new set of eyes, and a new staff to convince that they belong, or that they’re better off being utilized in different areas of the team.”
The Blades formally hired Love on May 30. He replaced Dean Brockman, who was fired after the team went 35-33-3-1 last season and missed the playoffs for a fifth straight year.
Love spent seven previous campaigns as an assistant coach with the Everett Silvertips, who reached the WHL final last season.
They gave him a lot of responsibility in Everett, including some of the same duties he’ll perform as the Blades’ head coach. Still, he said, it’s a different thing to enter a season as the head coach.
“As an assistant, at any level, you’re always looking at your head coach for different answers and different thoughts,” Love said. “Now, being a longtime assistant coach at this level, and having the assistant coach look at me for those answers ... it’s new to me.
“I feel like I’m prepared,” he added. “I feel like I’m ready for this opportunity. I’m really excited to get going — to meet these young men, to work with them, and find a way to scratch and claw and try to make the playoffs here in Saskatoon.”
Love worked with two current Blades this past off-season. He was an assistant coach on Canada’s gold-medal-winning entry at the u-18 Hlinka- Gretzky Cup, and the team included goaltender Nolan Maier and forward Kirby Dach.
“That was very beneficial,” he said. “It was a chance for those two young men to get to know me a little bit, both on the personal side and on the coaching side. Hopefully they had a good experience with me for those three weeks, and there’s some things they can pass on to their teammates even before we really put the nuts and bolts in here as a team.”
If they don’t like some things that went on here in the past for them personally, it’s a new opportunity, a new set of eyes.
Love is one of two new faces on the coaching side; the other is recently-hired assistant coach Ryan Marsh.
Introductions begin for real when the team — 39 forwards, 26 defencemen and nine goaltenders — convenes on Saturday for registration and fitness testing.
They ’ll split into four squads for the Kirkness Cup, which runs Sunday and Monday. The first-place game will be played Monday at 4 p.m. at Sasktel Centre.