Gladiators camp 10-7-07

First, the jersey colors:

Blue: Mike Hamilton - Jeff Campbell - Andy Brandt
Yellow: Jamie Milam - Lou Dickenson - Dirk Southern
Red: Stuart MacRae - Derek Nesbitt - Ryan Walsh
Green: Josh Bennett - Jared Wiseman
Burgundy - defensemen, which included Jon Awe.
Goalies: Craig Kowalski, Dan Turple, Chad Collins

Today is Jeff Pyle's birthday. Cam Brown guessed that he was 44, but he's really 49. He's the youngest 49-year-old I've ever met. I think coaching 20-somethings keeps him young.

Al Blevins will be coaching the goalies again this year. That's great news. For those who aren't familiar with him, he's the manager over at the IceForum, and he was someone Dave Caruso had worked with for years. He'll restart work with Turps and K-Wal once camp is over and the regular season starts. Al is a great guy and I think he really helped last year.

As far as players go, Lou Dickenson looked good to me, hitting and he has speed. Actually there's a lot of speed in general on the team. Not a lot of size though, but that's normal. It looked like a pretty tough workout, lots of 2 on 2 and 1 on 1 work.

The thing that made it worth the drive was seeing the three goaltenders play keepaway with the puck along the boards. Each one had a different strategy. Turps would lock it up along the boards and no one could move him. Collins tried bodychecking him off it, that didn't really do much except make me about choke on my drink (he's about 5'6). K-Wal's strategy was throwing his stick.

Kowalski will need to put in a new mask order ASAP. Both the Carolina logo and the palm trees look a little out of place here.