The Fort McMurray Oil Barons held a three camp in Sherwood Park this past weekend to evaluate returning talent and some new players as well.

The camp saw 4 ice sessions and 2 off-ice testing sessions followed by one-on-one interviews to wrap up the camp.

New goaltender Steven Legatto looked good on the ice and was impressed with the Oil Barons organization off the ice, “I can totally tell it’s a classy organization, the totally cover anything and the guys are really nice”, said Legatto.

Blueliner Jeff Wright was acquired in the same deal as Legatto and made his first appearance with the MOB. Wright joins Brad Stebner and Kyle Johnson as the only Oil Barons defensemen with full-time experience in the AJHL. Wright looked very mobile and was not afraid to jump into the rush despite being known as more of a stay at homer. Brendan Wright, who is expected to have a good shot at making the Barons this year, was not able to attend the camp because of an eye effection but there were several other good young defenseman.

James Isaacs, out of Victoria, made a nice impression the Barons brass as did 17 year old B.C. boy Justin Christian. Christian is slightly short for a d-man but has a nice build and isn’t afraid to throw his weight around as he dished out and received the biggest two hits in camp. Fort McMurray born Kevin Foy looked stronger than he did last season when he saw some action with the Barons late in the season.

Curt Gogol was another 17 year old that looked good. He is expected to be with the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL to start the season but if he is looking for an increase in ice-time he could very well join the Barons this year.

Up front the Barons are expecting to see Michael Perry, Dakota Dubetz, Jeremy Roberts, Ben Lauder, Sean Rolling, Dave Carr and Matt Williams back for the upcoming season.

18-year old Ben Lake out of Calgary was very impressive and showed some Jack MacLellan like hockey sense. Gage Olsen brings a little “Adam Manah” to the table, he’s only 5″8 but attempted to run players through the boards and has been dubbed “A Little Ball of Hate”. Olsen could become a MOB fan favourite early in the season.

Andy Williams, the younger brother of Matt, and Fort McMurray’s Justin Remillard are both small speedy fowards and used their quickness to their advantage at times throughout the weekend.

17-year old David Sarin, of Sherwood Park, looked very good in the gold/blue game on Sunday morning and seems to be a skilled forward who has decent size and skates smoothly.

GM and Head Coach Gord Thibodeau was pleasantly surprised with the camp and figures that about 90 percent of the players would be invited to main camp which begins August 22nd.

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As the Voice of the Oil Barons I felt it would be helpful to all the players, family and fans to have a place to go to listen to all the interviews I conduct with the members of the MOB.

I will also post game recaps here on the MOB Blog and also toss highlight packages from games up hereon the site.