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The U18 AAA Eastman Selects are coming back to Steinbach for the upcoming 2025-26 season, and the whole group is excited to get things going inside their new home, the Southeast Event Centre.
New home sweet home
After spending years away from Steinbach, head coach Bruce Sirrell is excited about coming back, and making the Southeast Event Centre their home. "The facility is fantastic," he says with a smile. "It makes sense for the flagship program of the Eastman Selects to put themselves in a location where it's more central for a lot of our players, and more of a draw to get top players to stay in the AAA stream. Maybe it stops players from going to a prep alternative, so it makes sense on a lot of fronts. Beausejour has been awesome for our program, but last year for example, we only have one player that was actually from that area, and we had 11 players that were around the Steinbach region. I think that's been a trend for a while, a lot of our players are coming from that area. We thought that if there was an opportunity, it would make a lot of sense to move the program to the new arena."
The Eastman Selects have a rich history and connections to many in the south east, and for Sirrell, the opportunity to re-engage with that history while making new history, is something that he's very much looking forward to. "I think we'll have a better draw, because we'll have more of our players within the community. There's a long history of Steinbach contributing to the Eastman Selects, so being able to have our guys in a situation where they have the Pistons playing maybe after them on a night, or they have an opportunity to help out locally in the community, close to the same rink that they play, that's a really good opportunity for our players. Also, we're in the process of getting ourselves a permanent dressing room, putting in stalls, and making it up nice for the players. Most of our games are going to be on the big sheet, there will be a few conflicts where we will play out of the TG Smith, but for the most part, we'll have some bumps with the transition, but overall, it'll be fantastic for our players."
Ramping up as the season approaches
It's a busy time for Sirrell, who's keeping an eye on players all over North America, while also looking at building his team for the upcoming season. "Right now, what we're doing is, we're looking at our tryout list and looking at the potentials. A lot of it has to do with who makes juniors and who doesn't make juniors. We have numerous, numerous players involved in various western hockey league camps or MJHL camps. Right now, we just reach out to those players, and have a good line of communication. I've talked to Niverville, I've talked to Steinbach, talked to some of the MJ teams that have multiple players in their camp, just getting a sense of what's likely, or what's possible to happen. As our tryouts go on, we're always watching to see which players will filter back down, or are likely to filter back down, so that's a calculation we're doing constantly throughout the camp. In terms of other preparation, we're reaching out if names that are missing on our tryout list to see if they missed registrations, changed locations or went to a prep school. Just trying to get all the information that we can, and then have good communication within Eastman, especially with our U17 program, and we'll see where we're at. We want to ice the best available team that we can come the start."
Come out and see your Eastman Selects
Sirrell says that there's going to opportunities for fans to come and see camps, exhibition games, and start connecting with the Selects as they get ready for what will be a special regular season. "We have exhibition games coming up September 20th. We have more in mid-September. Our tryouts are open, they'll start September 4th. It'll be a mixture of both rinks for the tryouts. Hopefully, we'll have most of our players back in camp by that second week. That first week, a lot of guys are absent while they attend junior camps, it's that second week where we start to see that some guys may be coming back. We have a lot of returning guys, so we're thinking we'll have a very strong team. We have two players upfront that have a really good chance of making the MJHL, but we'll have those conversations, and we'll see how many sports are available. We're hoping for a very, very competitive camp, and we're looking to have a very strong team."
Suit thoughts
It's not just the players that are excited to be at the Southeast Event Centre, as Sirrell jokes that he hasn't put thought into that first game suit, but he's looking forward to being very stylish standing on that home bench for the first time. "That hasn't really crossed my mind yet," he says with a laugh. "But, as we approach our opening day, we're at home on the 26th, which isn't that far away, I'll have to make sure to pick the right fit for that day, for sure."
No matter what fit Bruce Sirrell goes with for that first game, the fit of having the Eastman Selects back in Steinbach is just right.