This morning begins the first on ice training for the 2011/12 Blackhawks at Johnny's Ice House, with the first session of the Prospect Camp. Stanimal addressed this year's camp with the press and stressed that this years camp would be a little different, from past camps. They are going to cater more to the actual Blackhawks players, rather than trying to find hidden free agents. This makes sense, if they want to build the system up like they say, and get these young players ready for the NHL. If you noticed, the recent young players have not progressed like like the current players did, when they were prospects. You had Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson, and Bolland all come up through the system and thrive at a young age. Even former players like Byfuglien, Versteeg, Wisniewski, Burish, and Eager played major minutes as youngsters. Part of the latest lull is directly because of the previous players success, but some of it is because the young players haven't been prepared. You'll have one or two players sneak through, like Three Times-A-Leddy, and Agent Smith, but players have hit a roadblock in Rockford lately, and it's not from IDOT construction. Players like Morin, Makarov, Beach, Pirri, and Lalonde should be pounding on the UC locker room door. Either it means they aren't prepared, or they aren't the talent that they were thought to be. I'm going with the first choice. So, in a nutshell, it's nice to see Stanimal notice this and make a change. Kudos to him, because god knows we have been hard on him.
On a side note, for all those looking to get their new players jerseys, it was announced that Brunette will wear Rich Sutter's old #15, Carbomb will wear lucky #13 (or unlucky if you associate it with Zhamnov), Mayers will do Adam Creighton proud and don his former #22, Rosty Olesz will wear the ever popular #85, The Matador will take Stevie Konroyds old #5, and O.D. will wear Bob Murray's old #6. Run out and get your Rosty Olesz jersey, while they last, folks!
