Peewee Golden Suns adjusting to new rules

First-year coach Jason Beckett will be giving his professional hockey flair to the bench of the Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns for the 2013-2014 South Central Alberta Hockey League season.

Beckett played hockey professionally for 12 years including six years in North America and six years in Europe, which included stints in Germany, Austria, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

“With the change in the contact rules of the peewee league, the game is going to go more to a puck-possession game. You obviously evaluate the team and the players and create a team, systems and philosophies,” said Beckett.

“I do see us being a puck-possession team that is going to be highly organized executing systems and executing game plans and encouraging development. It will be a system that encourages confidence in development.”

Given the creed brought down by Hockey Canada to take body checking out of peewee hockey across the country, Beckett confirmed it certainly affected the evaluation process, which saw 41 players try out for the team which will see 17 skaters and two goaltenders.

“In the past maybe size was more of an element. If two kids were the same and the one kid was bigger, you may choose the bigger kid.”

That didn’t play as much in the evaluation. You have to consider puck skills which are more important and skating ability with those things being vital, you can coach the rest. You don’t have to worry about the physical contact yet,” said Beckett. “The area kids came from was vast and so it was very complex. The last five cuts were especially difficult to make. Other cuts are just forced deadlines to try and get a team in place, there was a lot of talent to draw from.”

Taber peewee “AA” Golden Suns kick off its regular SCAHL season this Sunday at the Taber arena at 3:30 p.m. against Lethbridge Hurricanes Red.

“I think it’s a team that can set pretty aggressive goals with what it wants to accomplish. The goals are going t be set by the coaching staff, but more so by the players where they want to go and we are there to serve them in trying to get there,” said Beckett. “It’s definitely a motivated set of kids with some chemistry that’s already building in camp. I’m very confident the team has a chance if we as coaches do the best as we can and really help the kids achieve something this year.”