U18 AAA Hurricanes have a young look

By Lethbridge Herald on September 30, 2022.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge Hurricanes U18 AAA team is embracing being one of the younger teams in the loop this season.

“We’re going to have some growing pains off the start,” said head coach Sean Gillam.

“Our zone is huge. We’ve  got kids from Medicine Hat, kids from Cardston and Lethbridge and then we also brought in a couple of out-of-town kids. They’re still getting to know to each other and they’re getting to know the coaches. So we’re a work in progress and we’re having some growing pains to start. But we’ll be fine once everyone kind of settles in and figures out the exact way we want them to play.”

Gillam said they just have to keep focusing on the  process of what we teach every day and where we want to end up.

“It’s new for a lot of guys, we only have two returning players,” he said.

“They’re still learning it as we go here and we’ve been getting better every day. So there’s a lot of positive things that we’re looking at and we’re hoping a lot more positive things continue to come.”

The Canes will only have three 17-year-olds this season compared to the 13 last year.

“It’s just the cycles  that you go through,” he said.

“The thing with being younger, it’s a big jump. We’ve got some guys come right from U15 AAA and then other guys coming from U16 AAA and it’s a huge jump. There’s a bit of a learning curve there. Again, I do think that we have a good group of kids and we’ve got some depth and we’ve just got to get everyone firing on all cylinders and once we’get there, we’ll be fine.”

The goal is to get better every day, stick to the process and continue to grow with in themselves.

The Hurricanes will open their season with their home opener tonight at Nicholas Sheran Arena against the Calgary North Stars at 4:15 p.m. and then will host Sherwood Park on Sunday at 2:45 p.m.