WINSTON-SALEM, NC – A year ago, the Twin City Cyclones were just starting to adjust to life in a new city. What resulted was a trip to the SPHL playoffs and a solid commitment for year two at the Lawrence Joel Annex. With the 2008-2009 a few days away, Coach Mark Richards is running his training camp with a simple theory in mind: no roster spot is guaranteed. “When the puck drops for real, we’re probably going to have almost an entirely different roster than we had last year,” Richards said. “To be honest, I don’t know who’s going to make our team from last year. Some of them could and some of them might not.” Compared to this time last year, things have been reasonably calm in Winston-Salem. The biggest news during the off season was the number of Cyclones players who either left for teams in Europe or were invited to camps in higher leagues. No less than eight players had opportunities, something that Richards was quite happy about. “I think that’s just the nature of the beast that we’re in here in Twin City. We tend to get a lot of first year and younger kids,” he said. “I guess we’ve been kind of fortunate to get some good ones that have developed for a year or two here and gone on and moved up and all of them have an opportunity to play at a higher level this year. It’s something we’re definitely proud of.” Actually, there is one roster spot that Richards has already filled. It belongs to Twin City’s long time captain and leader Allan Sirois. According to Richards, Sirois (29-30-59) has come into camp in great shape and rearing to get another campaign underway. “Al’s here and he looks real good. He’s in good shape. He’s skating good and he’s in good spirits,” Richards said. “He’s looking forward to a nice year.” The goaltending chores look to be a contest between returning net minder Kevin Druce and newcomer Terry Dunbar. Druce (10-12-2, 3.86 goals against average) saw the bulk of the time last season and acquitted himself quite well. Dunbar has had two separate stints in the league with Knoxville. He was 9-8-2 for the Rocky Mountain Rage in the CHL a year ago. The lone returning defenseman is Ryan Bartle who had four points and 135 penalty minutes in 40 game with the Cyclones last year. Up front, Matt Puntureri (12-10-22), Paul Falco (8-17-25) and Brady Heintz (9-8-17 with Twin City, 10-12-22 overall) are all fighting for spots. Shane Wagner has joined the team in camp this season after playing with Jacksonville a year ago. Richards said that although he has talked to the players who have gone on to camps in higher leagues, he doesn’t like trying to plan for players to be returning. He said that the team is still talking to forwards Ryan Webb (formerly of Jacksonville) and Donald Melnyk (acquired in a trade from Richmond) but they will not be plugged into the picture until they sign. The fact that the Cyclones made last year’s playoffs as the fifth seed is a good note to build on. With the league changing its playoff format to only have four teams qualify for the post-season this year, Richards knows that the competition around the league will be tougher from opening night to the last day of the regular season. “Four teams get in (this season). We wouldn’t have made it last year,” he said. “We’d love to absolutely build on that. Our goal, like everybody else’s, is to win. You’ve got to instill that early and try to get that hunger in there every night to realize that we can compete in this league and be a factor instead of being a team always on the bubble.” That’s a goal that everyone can agree on. Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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