Harper eager to get season started

BRAMPTON, Ont. – Assistant coach Kelly Harper returned to duty with the Brampton Battalion on Wednesday, anxious to get on with the upcoming Ontario Hockey League season.rrHarper, who has been head coach Stan Butler’s fulltime assistant for the last two seasons, signed a three-year contract extension in June.rrThere’s no question that we have a lot of young, really good players, especially on defence,” said Harper, who oversees the Troops’ blue line. rrI really enjoy working with those guys and I’m excited about this season. It looks like we’ll have a really good team.”rrHarper will have a veteran group of defencemen, including John de Gray, Nick Duff, Phil Oreskovic and Michael Vernace, when training camp opens Aug. 31.rrI think we have a bit of everything back there. We have depth and experience, and we have some grit. We have guys who can skate and play offence and guys who can play tough in their own end. You feel really comfortable putting any of them out there.”rrHarper said the club will be looking for bigger contributions from veterans Kyle Sonnenburg and Tomas Stryncl, who performed well in limited roles last season.rrBoth of those guys were fine when they got a chance to play last year. There’s no question that we’re looking at both of those guys to play a bigger role, and it’s going to be a challenge because we have so much depth back there that guys will be battling for ice time.”rrBattalion defenders will be backed up by second-year goaltender Daren Machesney. A fifth-round pick of the Washington Capitals in the National Hockey League’s Entry Draft in July, Machesney made 38 regular-season and five playoff appearances last season.rrDaren’s now had the experience of playing in the playoffs. He has a year under his belt and he’s been through the draft process. It’ll be good for him to have a strong defence in front of him, because that can take some of the heat off.”rrHarper said the Troops will need to be strong defensively with the departure of productive offensive players such as centre Tyler Harrison, left winger Dan McDonald and centre Ryan Oulahen.rrWe need to be really good in our end and keep our goals against down, especially early, because we don’t know where our goals will be coming from.rrWe have really talented guys up front like (left winger) Aaron Snow, who should play a much bigger role next season, and (left winger) Luke Lynes. (Left winger) Wojtek Wolski will be looking at having a big year, and this will be a year where some guys can emerge and take the ice time that guys like Harrison and Oulahen had last year.”rrThe Battalion was parked in the upper reaches of the OHL’s Eastern Conference for much of the regular season in 2004-05. Harper, who credited the team’s success to hard work, said he hopes that continues in the coming campaign.rrLast year we showed up and competed on a daily basis, whether it was practice or games, and that’s why we were successful in the regular season. We’ll be looking for that again this season. We need good, strong leadership, and if guys come to work every day in practice it will carry over into games.”rr