The Pacific International Junior Hockey League regular season will finally get underway next week and no team should be hungrier coming out of the gate than the Delta Ice Hawks.
After reaching the finals two years ago, then losing a seventh game conference final heartbreaker to the Richmond Sockeyes last spring, the Ice Hawks are loaded with veteran talent to take another serious run at their third-ever PIJHL title.
Delta will begin its 44-game league schedule Tuesday when Port Moody visits the Ladner Leisure Centre at 7: 30 p.m. The team has been in training Spenc camp since mid-August with the PIJHL launching its regular season two weeks later than usual.
"We're all anxious to get going," said general manager Peter Zerbinos after his team's final pre-season home game on Tuesday night, a 5-0 win over the visiting Abbotsford Pilots.
"Yes, we did make it to game seven last year, but we almost thought we were entitled to be there. This year, there is a different feeling and the guys know the only thing they are entitled to is coming to the rink and working their butts off. They have some goals they feel they need to address this year."
The Ice Hawks do have some holes to fill including the graduation of last year's league MVP and leading scorer Liam Harding, along with Kye Benjaminsen.
However, there are more than enough returning veterans to fill the void, including the high scoring trio of 20-year-olds Spencer Traher, Cody Fidgett and captain Cody Smith. There is also plenty of muscle up front with John Proctor, Anthony Brito and Mitchell Pacey, while Aaron Merrick was the league's top scoring rookie a year ago. More scoring depth was added with the acquisitions of Sam Vikich and South Delta alumni Byron Maxwell.
Veteran Doug Birks will get the bulk of the work in net and rookie Glenn Ferguson had an impressive camp after playing major midget last season. Any concerns about a lack of experience on the blueline has been somewhat reduced with Ryan Cuthbert and Alex Martin returning to join two other regulars - Taylor Kislanko and Mark Whiteley.
Even with all this assembled talent, the Ice Hawks will have an immense challenge just get out of their conference with the defending champion Sockeyes also bringing back the bulk of their roster.
"We're still trying to improve the team and identifying little areas of weakness that we think might be there," added Zerbinos. We are not completely happy where we are at right now."
They won't be until they can take that final step next spring.
