When the ice melts away, Michael LeNoury carries on the long, inexplainable tradition of hockey players who trade their sticks for golf clubs in the off-season.
But after a summer working and golfing at a course in his hometown of Vernon, the Nelson Leafs defenceman described his legs as Jell-O on Sunday during the team’s training camp.
“You don’t know what to expect honestly,” he said. “I’ve only been on the ice once all summer. I was a little rusty.”
LeNoury was one of 41 players breaking in their skates at the Nelson and District Community Complex over the weekend. Although the camp featured several returning players like LeNoury, Sawyer Hunt and Nicholas Wihak, the majority were new faces trying to crack the Leafs’ roster.
For LeNoury, a physical blueliner who is listed at six foot three, 200 pounds, that means trying not to turn potential teammates into, well, Jell-O.
“It’s weird going against guys I played with,” he said. “You don’t know if you’re supposed to hit them really hard. I think by the time exhibition games come around it will be nice. You go against people who are not your team anymore and won’t hold grudges.”
Related: Lance Morey takes over as Leafs GM
The upcoming season marks the Leafs’ second full year under head coach Mario DiBella. Despite enduring a campaign filled with injuries, suspensions, a revolving door in net and several players lost to Junior A, Nelson took a step forward last season by upsetting the Castlegar Rebels in the first round of the playoffs before falling to the eventual league champion Beaver Valley Nitehawks.
In the interim, DiBella and new general manager Lance Morey continued looking to the future.
“Lance tracked a number of these players all of last season,” said DiBella.
“I went to a number of camps with Lance, some without Lance. We knew who we were targeting and who we wanted to come in. They have lived up to the expectations from what we saw last year as well as the spring camps that we saw them in.”
DiBella said the camp gives him and his coaching staff — assistants Sean Dooley and Isaac MacLeod are both returning to the bench this season — a chance to give the new players a close look with an eye on improving in areas such as goal scoring and goaltending.
He added he’s impressed with the progress taken by some of the Leafs’ veterans.
“At the Junior B level sometimes the tendency is to be complacent but from the backend to the forwards, particularly players like Zach Morey, Sawyer Hunt, they’ve come to camp in impeccable shape and they’ve led from the time they set foot on the ice.”
The roster is far from settled by the end of camp.
Several players are away at Junior A camps, while others were in Nelson over the weekend will also go try-out for Junior A teams. Defenceman Jake Hryhoriw, who the Leafs acquired last week from the Hearst Lumberjacks of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League, also wouldn’t join the team until after the camp.
The roster will continue to take shape through exhibition play, which Nelson opens Aug. 27 in Grand Forks. The Leafs play three straight exhibition games Sept. 1-3 on home ice before opening the regular season Sept. 8 at home to Castlegar.