The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Pacha planning patient approach to new season
Dundee Stars head coach Omar Pacha is delighted to have a proposed date for a return to topflight action, but says it hasn’t altered his plans.
The board members of the Elite League agreed last month that December 5 was pencilled in for the restart.
Pacha – also the Stars’ general manager – has taken a careful approach towards the next campaign and maintains he will not rush into making signings.
He said: “It started with the announcement that the league are making a push to try and get the season started in December, which I think was the right thing to do.
“We have to be a bit cautious about what we want to do moving forward and as a club.
“We are still being very patient but we have signed some guys, and we also want to make sure we get the right guys.
“It has been a long summer but there is a lot of work going on in the background to keep pushing our business off the ice and on the ice, and the recruitment side of things is still ongoing.
“As I said, we want to get the right guys in and it is a weird market right now because some leagues might start earlier and some might even start later than ours.
“So, we are just remaining patient and focusing on building the best team possible for the coming season.”
The Canadian added: “I think the league always wanted to put a plan in place and now it is great to see that we have one officially.
“But as a league, and as a country, everything will be controlled by the virus and we will have to see how it reacts over the next few months but things seem to be going in the right direction.
“So, hopefully that will translate to our sport and we will be able to start again on the dates we plan to and things can go back to normal.”
The shutdown and the uncertainty surrounding the sport’s return has had an impact on the recruitment strategy of several clubs.
Pacha said: “You may also be able to grab some players that would not normally come into your league, so it is a new game for everybody, including the 10 teams in the Elite League.”