The Eastman Selects will open the 2017-2018 Manitoba Female AAA Midget Hockey League season against the defending champion Pembina Valley Hawks in Morden on October 1st.

The Selects have iced very competitive teams the past couple of seasons and nearly won it's first playoff series in recent memory this past March.

Eastman was eliminated by the Yellowhead Chiefs losing 3-2 in double overtime in the deciding fifth game of their quarterfinal.

Head coach Bill Bram started evaluating players back in August and said the task of finalizing his 2017-2018 roster wasn't easy.

"The last couple of cuts were very hard to make. It was pretty close. It was tough and that's the toughest part of this job is making those final cuts. Just seeing the passion everybody has for the game. I think we have the pieces in place. I think we're going to be very successful this year."

Bram also had high praise for Selects bantam coach Chris McColm.

"He's preparing the kids. Our bantam girls coming up - we’ve got a good group. They’re all buying in to what we're doing. They came to camp in very good shape. To me that's half the battle, the conditioning part. It doesn't matter who you are...forward, defenceman, goalie. We kind of prepared them in spring as to what we wanted and everybody bought it. It's nice to see. We still got a long way to go but we've got a good start."

"I think we have a very good nucleus," added Bram. "We have a young team. We started earlier just because we were in a tournament a couple of weekends ago. It's the best tournament of the year. We had them prepared and I thought we had it pretty good. We played five games out there and had two wins, two ties and one loss. Overall it was a good weekend for gelling. Getting all the kids used to each other and used to our systems that we've been working on. It was a very good weekend to start."

The Selects attended the Stoney Creek Midget Showcase in Ontario earlier this month.

Eastman skated to a scoreless tie with the Scarborough Sharks; beat the St. Catherines Badgers 5-3; played to a 1-1 tie with the Durham West Lightning; dropped a 3-2 decision to the Barrie Sharks and blanked the Thunder Bay Queens 2-0.

Bram says his younger players adjusted quickly to the level of competition and the speed of the game at the Showcase.

"I think the biggest thing was the compete. There were a lot of good kids. We beat a team (Durham West) that was bronze medallists at the Esso Cup last year. I was very please with our effort and our defensive play as a whole. We only allowed seven goals in five games. That's what we've been working on is basically defensive play. Everybody is buying in and it’s great to see early in the season."

The Selects will take part in the Central Plains Capitals Showcase Tournament in Portage this weekend, play an exhibition game against the Pilot Mound prep school in Steinbach on September 29th and then it's the league opener two days later in Morden.


photos courtesy Gemma Brown