Aidan Calhoun: A Camp Success Story

Is it main camp? This is a question that our staff received over and over when discussing our prospect camps with players as an option besides coming to the main camp at the end of the summer. The title name of main camp gives it this powerful meaning like it is the only place where a player can earn a spot on a roster. However, this is simply not the case with the way that our organization does things. 

This summer, our organization decided to host 3 different prospect camps in 3 different cities. We hosted camps in Casper, Wyoming, Mt. Clemens, Michigan, and Nashville, Tennessee. For each of these camps, we partnered with a different premier team and held smaller camps that allowed players the opportunity to be seen in a more personal manner than just showing up with 100 other kids for 3 games in the hopes of making the team. 

These camps were designed to be of a smaller scale, only 3 teams each, where players would compete in one practice and two games that allowed for us to see things such as their practice habits, their ability to pick up drills, and their gameplay as well. These camps have a more personal feel to them as well as we are able to meet in person with players all weekend allowing us to get to know them over the few days we have with them. It also allows us the opportunity to offer feedback to players prior to the end of the summer that they can put to use to tweak some things before we select our final roster.

One player who took advantage of these camps is defenseman Aidan Calhoun from the prestigious 18uAAA Belle Tire program from Michigan. Aidan came to our Michigan camp and immediately impressed us with his skating, compete level, ability to grasp drills, personality off the ice, and his hockey IQ. Aidan impressed us so much that we actually made a trade for a tender mid camp so that we could commit him to our program. Aidan is the perfect example of why players should take advantage of our camp opportunities next summer as opposed to just waiting until the end of the summer to try to make our team. In a world with so many players, give yourself every opportunity you can to improve and earn an opportunity at a higher level.