PREVIEW: Warriors open preseason against the Broncos
Training camp is in the rearview mirror and preparations for the new season begin in earnest this weekend for the Moose Jaw Warriors.
Moose Jaw will open it’s 2022 preseason schedule with a home-and-home against the Swift Current Broncos, starting on Friday night at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
“Anytime you can have live bullets, it just helps your development,” Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary said on finally facing a different team after a week of training camp and another of practice.
“We have had a real good week of practice, but at the end of the day, it’s just practice, so to go against another team, that’s just going to help us take another step here and make sure we’re ready to go for [the start of the regular season].”
The Warriors will play a mix of returning veterans and younger players this weekend, giving some fresh faces their first taste of the Western Hockey League.
Noah Degenstein, the Warriors’ 2022 second round pick, will make his debut with the team in Friday’s game.
He said he’s excited about the opportunity.
“I’m expecting it to be a very high paced game, it will be a big step in my career, I’m excited,” Degenstein said.
The six-foot-three 15-year-old forward said he’s been taking little steps throughout rookie camp, main camp and now in practice and feels like he’s ready to get a taste of game action.
“It’s been a lot harder [than the Under-15 Prep level],” he said. “It’s been great, there’s lots of role models in the dressing room that I look up to, great players.”
O’Leary said he wants to see the younger players bring effort and compete to the ice.
“We talk all the time that there’s lots of skill in the dressing room and it’s early in the season here, so we don’t expect everything to be perfect, but we can always control our effort and our compete level, and I wouldn’t expect anything less from this group,” he said.
O’Leary added that he will lean on the older players to show the younger ones the Warriors’ way.
“That’s their job,” he said. “Whether you’re young or old, you have a job to do and that’s to prepare of this season, so I expect our guys to be ready to go.”
The Warriors and Broncos face-off at 7 p.m. at the Moose Jaw Events Centre. Single game tickets for the game go on sale at 10 a.m. at mjwarriors.ca and the Moose Jaw Events Centre Box Office.
Friday night’s game will also be available for free on WHL Live with the Pre-Game Show starting at 6:50 p.m.
