Coach's Corner October, 1997

by Karen Irwin

The Tiger Sharks are ready to start another great season. Coach Christensen has brought in a lot of new talent as we only had five familiar faces returning from last season; Greg Geldart, Cal Ingraham, Jim Paradise, Louis Bedard and Matt Osiecki.

Welcome back guys.

Coach Christensen had a lot of recruiting to do over the summer to build a new team. With the loss of both Mark Richards and Sonny Mignacca, goaltending was one of the most important areas Coach Christensen had to address this season. He is confident that Aaron MacDonald and Blair Allison will provide us with solid goaltending.

With that problem solved, the next area Coach Christensen addressed was defense. After scrambling all last season for more depth in the defensive line due to early call-ups, Coach Christensen has made an effort to attract some good players in that position to ensure that doesn't happen again. We currently have nine defensemen, three of which may also play forward. Bob Woods, our player/assistant coach, played forward last season with the Mobile Mysticks. Rod Butler has played forward throughout camp and Aigars Mironovics played center in last Thursday's practice.

Coach Christensen is concerned about the lack of depth at the forward position and is no doubt pleased that we can hold on to the defensemen and use them as forwards. He has plans to build the forward line as the season progresses.

Additional players will arrive in the coming weeks. Gary Socha, who did not play in the Black and White Game, will be returning to Tallahassee and Wade Fenning arrived in Tallahassee from our International League parent-club in Utah on Saturday, October 11. We will also be getting some help from Florida, as they will probably send down another player besides MacDonald. There is also the possibility that Jed Fiebelkorn Danny Lupo, Ron Pasco and Wes Swinson will end up in Tallahassee before the end of the season.

Coach Christensen would like to express his appreciation to the Fin-Atics. The involvement and support of the fan club is often brought up in recruiting. He is very appreciative of all the things the Fin-Atics do for the Tiger Sharks.