The Northwest hockey team will not have long to reflect on its excellent season, as the Texans will begin a 10-game summer schedule at the end of May.
Coach Wes Rose said he finds the summer season to be invaluable in terms of keeping his players in the swing of things and evaluating talent.
"We’re going to have a team competing at the varsity level and in the junior varsity division," Rose said. "Things are looking pretty good. We have enough kids for both teams. My seniors aren’t coming back to play summer hockey; I guess they’re just ready to move on. Clint Carlisle won’t be there either, but the rest of the clan will be around, so I think it will be a good opportunity for us to take a look at what we have coming back for next fall."
Rose said he would like to use the summer to get some work in, but also wants his players to have fun.
"We just want to keep the kids on the ice first and foremost, but we want to give them a break," Rose said. "We don’t want it to be like spring training or anything like that. We’ll do the summer pretty lax, and as we get closer to the season, we’ll do a tryout and pick kids for the varsity and the rest of the kids will be on the junior varsity. At the very end, we’ll probably do a training camp, where we’ll have two or three ice sessions a week to try to get the kids geared up for the season."
Rose said his team is going to have a much different look next year.
"You’re going to see a younger team," Rose said. "We are only going to have two or three seniors on next year’s team."
Northwest went two rounds into the playoffs and finished seventh in state this past season, and in spite of the youth on next year’s team, Rose said he believes the Texans can repeat on last year’s success.
"I think that Colleyville team was a Gold level team, and we got beat by them," Rose said. "Of course, they won it all, so I think we pretty much could have hung with anybody else in the city, and I think next season, if the divisions stay pretty much the same, I don’t see any reason why we can’t be as successful if not more successful than last year."