Seventy excited bantam-aged hockey players will be on the ice this weekend at the Ron Ebbesen Arena in Airdrie at the Spring Camp of the Airdrie AAA Bantam Xtreme.

The most excited of them all could be a bit older than the players. First-year Head Coach Tyson Soloski can't wait to get going.

"Yeah, I'm just super excited to get started," exclaims Soloski.  "This is my first year coaching and it'll be nice to meet all the returning players and all the players trying out and just kind of see where we lie and get a relationship started with everyone trying out."

Soloski says the goal of the Spring Camp is to educate and inform all interested players and their families with regards to the Airdrie Xtreme program and expectations when entering the main camp in September.  Soloski says one thing it will take to be successful in the program is commitment.

"I think a lot of players who may have played AA growing up won't truly understand what the commitment is at the AAA level.  We practice three times every second week, we play two games every weekend.  It's quite the commitment and its hockey.  It's school first, family second and hockey third but those are kind of the big commitments in your life.  If you're not fully ready to commit, it's going to be very hard to be successful at this level, as a team or as an individual."

Once the camp is over, each player will get the chance to set up a phone call to discuss feedback from the coaches to help the players prepare and improve over the summer.  The format provides more time for coaches to assess and formulate more descriptive feedback for the players.  The Xtreme coaching staff believes in not only developing a players' hockey skills but their life skills as well.

During the 2018 - 2019 season, the Xtreme was a completely new team with no players back from the Alberta championship team of the previous season.  This year Soloski says there will be several returning players.  

The Spring Camp runs today (June 14th) through Sunday.