No earth-shattering news, and no new players, at Sunday’s practice at Riverside Ice Town.
The only unusual sight was that the Reign were down to 14 skaters by the end of practice. Josh Newton, a Riverside resident in camp on a tryout, suffered a recurrence of the left groin injury that he incurred late in Saturday’s practice, and was off the ice after 20 minutes. Even though Newton said he expects to be back on the ice tomorrow, that’s some seriously bad luck in your one practice with a pro team in your home town.
A couple more notes …
- Tomorrow’s practice, an afternoon session at Citizens Business Bank Arena, is closed to the public. The Bank was occupied by Disney on Ice all weekend, which prevented the Reign from practicing, but the new players have already “moved in” to their new digs, so to speak. Karl Taylor will be happy to be back on home ice.
“We’ve got our equipment there,” Taylor said. “We’ve got our cold tubs. Everything’s there. It’s quick, it’s convenient. … We work out there, we ride the bikes there.”
- Don’t look now, but the first preseason game is five days away. What’s the focus between now and then?
“We’re just trying to get our systems in place,” Taylor said. “Start building the environment we want, get guys accountable for how we want to play. We want to get guys in conditioning to the correct spot, plus we want to evaluate. Some guys will get one game, some guys will get no games, so they’re going to make their game the best they can, to show what they can during practice. Try to sell their case to stay here. There will be new guys coming tomorrow, probably the next day. They better sell hard.”
- Don’t expect Dusty Collins to be here right away. He survived the second round of cuts at the San Antonio Rampage’s training camp.
- Check out tomorrow’s editions of the Sun and Daily Bulletin for a closer look at the three goalies fighting for two roster spots.
