Captain selected: Second-year winger Mike Batovanja will wear the C this year for the Thunder. It’s a good choice by coach Brent Bilodeau. Batovanja is tough and scrappy — he’s only 5-7 but he’ll go with anyone — and he’s as fiery as they come. He’ll be a great role model for the younger players. At Michigan Tech, he was an assistant captain as a junior and co-captain as a senior. Check out tomorrow’s Eagle for Bilodeau’s thoughts on Batovanja.
Leftover camp note: I asked Bilodeau about training camp surprises. With no hesitation, he said that defenseman Greg Cassista has been the most-pleasant surprise. “He hasn’t played for two years, and he’s done really well,” Bilodeau said.
The rest of his answer: “Chris Tarkir and Chris Shudo have showed a lot of speed and some promise. Chris Greene has been a good surprise for me. He’s played really well and worked really hard.”
2 Comments
How long will they go with this plan of “waiting for the other leagues to make the cuts?” Looking at their roster, they can’t be even close to the salary cap. It seems like they are planning on mailing it in for the start of the season, and if the Thunder have *any* chance of making the playoffs, I don’t see how they can afford to give points away early in the season. I also am curious as to how the other teams in the league seem to find their players *before* the season starts, but in Wichita, we can’t do that. Odd. but if it works, I’m all for it. Right now. though, I’m pretty doubtful as to the performance of this plan.
I like Batty wearing the C. Better than Duds.