The Red Deer North Star Chiefs have plenty to be excited about ahead of the start of the 2024-24 U17 AAA Alberta Elite Hockey League (AEHL) season.
Not only does first-year head coach Greg Esteves have high hopes for his team but so do the players.
When asked by their coach to write down ideas for how they want to play, Esteves said there was a common theme. The boys expressed a desire to be a hardworking, competitive, and relentless team.
They also hope to be disciplined, and respectful, but also be viewed as unstoppable.
"Those are powerful words aren't they? Now they have to live up to them," said Esteves on Wednesday.
"As a group, we have high expectations of how we should do. If our early season and practice indications are any sort of signal it should be a group that competes well in our division and our league."
Through the exhibition season, the Chiefs posted a 2-1 record beating the Parkland Saints and the Calgary Bulls.
They opened the season Friday against the Calgary Royals, before playing on Saturday, Oct. 5 in Sherwood Park against the Squires.
Their home opener is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 12 when they host the GPAC Storm at 4:45 p.m. at Servus Arena.
"So far so good... We have a very skilled, fast, and smart team. It's a really great group of young men and we're really excited about the potential they've already shown early on," he said.
"Our tryouts went later than a lot of our competition so we're still in the early stages of figuring out who we are as a team but we've looked good."
The Chiefs have returned just three players from last year's team including forward Barrett Newfield, forward Bennett Roth, and goaltender Ryder Cyrenne. The rest of the team has been promoted from the U15 AAA level as well as U16 AA and other leagues.
"I think we're pretty balanced. We have some very fast, skilled, and smart forwards. All four lines that we have have the potential to be very successful," he said.
"On defence we have a good mix of offensive talent and some stay-at-home defenders. I do believe that Grady Gardiner and Ryder Cyrenne will be among the top goaltenders in our division if not in our whole league."
