The Thunder Bay Kings are preparing for a hockey season that will feel much closer to pre-pandemic times.
The U-13, U-15, and U-16 teams will wrap up their tryouts Sunday, August 29th while the U-18 squad finishes up Saturday.
“We want skilled players that can play the game, skate, that will compete, that have a high hockey IQ, and are willing to make a commitment to a program that’s as close to junior hockey as you’re ever going to find,” explained U-18 Head Coach Jeff Riccardi.
The Kings U-15, U-16 and U-18 squads are gearing up for their debut in the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL).
That schedule is set to get going in November that would take the Kings down to Southern Ontario for a few weekends, for 28 games against the in-house teams.
The organization did receive approval to skate in the league last year but those plans were scrapped last October in favour of combination of a bubble format and an invite as a guest team for the 2020-2021 Superior International Junior Hockey League campaign.
Riccardi says about the schedule, “We’ll have multiple weekends where we have scheduled home and homes with the Sault Jr. Greyhounds. We have a weekend with RINK Hockey Academy (RHA) which is an academy team out of Winnipeg. We’re heading to Ottawa to play in a tournament there in early October. We’re also scheduled to go to the Peterborough tournament in early January, so when you add up every potential weekend we have for the season, it’s looking upwards to 14 or 15 full weekends.”
The U-18 team is set to be named in late August.
