Minnesota Swarm Training Camp

November 23, 2005

The Swarm were hard at it over the weekend. Nearly all the players were here at times throughout the weekend. They were very appreciative of the fans who watched them the whole weekend.

The coaches are doing a great job. Paul St. John has a wealth of knowledge and he defintely will get in anybody's face. Derek Moffat even played goalie in the last two practices as they rested Nick Patterson after Saturday morning. There a couple of photos of him in action. He is the goalie wearing white. Of course, Adam Mueller, the head coach is determined to get the Swarm to the playoffs and listening to Adam, he has me convinced.

Nick Patterson looked very sharp in goal. He defintely will be ready to go for the regular season. Mike Attwood was in goal the whole weekend and is constantly improving. The coaches said that Matt Disher did well in the Ontario camp two weekends ago. All in all, our goaltending is very solid.

Nolan Heavenor, Noah Talbot, Kyle Ross, Rory McDade & Kasey Beirnes, who came in on Saturday, are very impressive additions to the team.

Tony Henderson looks in better shape and if that continues he will make the Wings fans eat their words.

The three other draft picks after Heavenor made a good impression. Tyler Perry, Nate Andres and Dean Hill made it tough for the coaches to leave them off the team. If they don't play for the Swarm this year, they definitely will in the future.

My fellow Swarm fan, Old Goalie, was very impressed with Anthony Kelly, who played field at The Ohio State. Old Goalie pointed out that Anthony is built solidly and makes his presence known on the court and after watching him, I agree. I hope the Swarm take a chance on him this season. He wasn't at the Open House; however, I got a few action photos of him at the Sunday practice in jersey 49.

D'arcy Berthiaume was in attendance this weekend. He warmed up a bit before the open scrimmage on Friday night; however, he didn't practice the rest of the week. Nevertheless, he did look good and he said his recovery is going well. He won't be on the sidelines this year, that is for sure.

On a sad note, Marty O'Neill says that Ryan Painter hasn't been able to get approval to play with his post-concussion syndrome and Marty didn't sound too confident if it would happen any time soon.

Of course, it is great to see the rest of the returning Swarm. Ryan Ward will lead the team in scoring with Chad Culp giving chase. Ryan Cousins is the Captain of the team, no doubt. The others are anxious to go and of course, Brock Boyle is back to terrorize on defense.