Traverse City Record-Eagle

Sports

July 21, 2012

Cohos aim to stock up on talent with tryout

Team has 3 players signed already

BY JAMES COOK jcook@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — Three down, 20-something more.

The Traverse City Cohos have three players in the boat and are hoping to land a few more this weekend as the team finishes up its first tryout camp today.

The Junior A team has about 35 skaters and a half-dozen goaltenders in the camp.

"I'm pretty excited," team owner and coach Scott Gardiner said. "We've got two full teams and six goalies here and it's filled with local guys."

Traverse City West standout Alex Grizzel and former Bay Reps defenseman Scott Luca signed tenders with the team, and are at the camp, giving the team three players signed, including Traverse City native Cam Fisher. Other notable area players at the tryout camp include former TC North Stars Jared Van Wormer, Eric Rivard and Kyle Froese, plus Traverse City Central defenseman Lucas Little, TC native and goaltender Brandon Halverson and TC West forward Tyler Thirlby.

Little also will be skating in camp for the Port Huron Fighting Falcons of the NAHL.

"It's nice to finally drop the puck and start chipping away at the roster," Gardiner said. "This is kind of a different animal than what I'm used to dealing with before. You could assemble your team by now, or had 95 percent of it. In this league, you have to wait a little longer — an extra month. I can see the team pretty much being put together in middle or late August."

Today's portion of the camp is open to the public and free of charge. On-ice sessions are 8-10 a.m. and 3-5 p.m. at Centre ICE.

"The nature of this league is we have to wait for the USHL and the North American league, and then see where players end up at that point and go from there," Gardiner said. "For me, I'd like to come out with eight forwards and four defensemen."

After today, the Cohos are running a combined camp with the Hartland Hounds in Hartland on Aug. 3-5, when Gardiner hopes he can secure even more players.

"It's primarily local kids at this camp," Gardiner said. "I don't think there's any downstaters at this one. It's good. There's some young kids out here that probably wouldn't make it this year, but maybe they get on the radar and we take them next year."

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