NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Cubs forward Caleb Garrecht tries to deke around an Okotoks Bisons' defender in Game 4 of the Cubs' South finals loss March 14 against Okotoks to lose their series 4-0. The Cubs open training camp ahead of the 2023-24 season today.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Cubs are gearing up for a historic season in the HJHL.
The Cubs open training camp Friday as they prepare for their 50th season of operation. Head coach and general manager Randy Wong says they are looking forward to both getting the season underway and being able to celebrate their history.
“The Cubs program has survived for 50 years in Medicine Hat, which is an amazing accomplishment,” Wong said. “The best thing about all of it is, I’ve gotten to listen to a lot of alumni, 50 years worth, we go back to 1974 and a lot of those guys are going to come to our alumni event we have scheduled the same day as our home opener.
“On Oct. 7, we’re going to have an alumni game and we’ve got players registered for that, we have lots of activities planned for throughout the day and we’re going to kick off our regular season with our home opener against the Rocky Rams. Those alumni are going to stay and be part of the celebration and watch our new Cubs play. The oldest stories are going to get told at the Kinplex on Oct. 7, it’s going to be phenomenal.”
The Cubs enter the 2023-24 HJHL season off a South Finals sweep by the eventual champion Okotoks Bisons. They had a 27-8-3 regular season record, sitting in second place of the South division behind the Bisons, and beat the Cochrane Generals 4-2 in their first round series before ultimately falling to Okotoks for the second straight year.
That playoff run, and its quick and disappointing ending, is something Wong says they will bring up early in camp but won’t continue reliving.
“There’s a lot of guys on this team who went through that, the new guys on the team will hear it a little bit but we’re not about worrying about last year and how it ended,” Wong said. “But as long as we understand why it happened and then we turn the page and we forget about that, we look forward to how we can prevent it from happening this year. We’ll use it as a little bit of motivation to start the year but then the focus becomes this group, that’s what I’m going to be focused on is just making sure this group is ready this year and make sure we can compete against those better teams.”
They enter camp as a different team from last season, graduating longtime Cubs Colby Friedrich, Cooper Hilworth, Jacob Milne and captain Levi Schlosser. Wong says they’ve looked at what their needs are and look to have a more team approach this season.
“We lose the highest scoring guy in the league last year in Cooper Hilworth, you can’t replace that and we’re not about to,” Wong said. “So the message this year really is all about the team, it’ll be a team first mindset. Making sure we work together as a team, trust your teammates, those types of things will get us through and a lot of times, there’s more success there than having individual guys who are more skilled and can put up a lot of points.
“I want our guys to work together better, to get better results. We weren’t a championship team from last year, so we have to improve. And our improvement will come by being all in and working together this year.”
Cubs main camp, which is held at the Big Marble Go Centre, gets underway tonight with ice time from 7:45-10 p.m. They have a goalie session Saturday from 10:45-11:30 a.m., followed up with ices times at 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 5-7 p.m. Sunday’s skates include skill work from 10:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. followed by a scrimmage from 3-5 p.m.
Heading into the weekend Wong says it’s difficult to start picking lines because there are so many options in camp and with players also at Junior A camps. A newly introduced rule from Hockey Canada allows them to carry 25 payers this season, something he says will help them in the long run.
“My starting point is the guys who are in town, ready to go so we’ll focus on them and we’ll evaluate where we need to improve, what guys are looking for a home,” Wong said. “There’s lots of guys we want back who are at Junior A camps right now and should they need a home, we’re hoping they’ll make Medicine Hat their decision and we’ll make the Cubs the program that they want to come to. We’ll kind of factor those guys in and we’ll evaluate again and pick our team through the first month, two months of the season.
“Last year we had to make a couple of tough decisions in the New Year and go down to a 23-man roster, where this year, we don’t have that problem. That’s a good thing for us because we feel by then we’re going to have the depth we need to compete for a championship.”
