The Orlando Solar Bears are still building connections with teammates and coaches early in the season. But they have a good place to start so far.
The Orlando Solar Bears opened their training camp and almost immediately went into games. A month of work with the Toronto Marlies, a truncated training camp together and then a game. The regular season opener against Greenville proved to be both a strong performance and one that left plenty of learning.
The Solar Bears won that game 6-3 over the Swamp Rabbits, showing signs of positive play under new coach Anthony Noreen. The three goals were discouraging and remain a sign of a team learning to play together.
Four days in between the opener and Thursday and Saturday’s game against Norfolk (both games at 7 p.m. at Amway Center) has given Orlando some time to play catch up and cement ideas from the new coaching staff and build off the win last Saturday.
“It’s obviously a good start getting six goals,” Matt Rupert said. “It’s a good sign of offense to come. Every line was rolling. They all chipped in. It was a good stepping stone.”
A stepping stone is all it was. As fellow forward Brady Vail said, the team still gave up three goals and the Solar Bears cannot rely on scoring six goals per game. That just is not sustainable.
The heightened expectation for this group — to go beyond the first round despite all the changes that occur with an ECHL team and build a sustained winner at the minor league level — does bring a little bit of higher expectations for the players themselves.
This is still an entirely new team — a new coach and several new players playing together for really the first time for any sustained period. While it is true many of the players competed with each other in Toronto and Newfoundland for the Toronto Marlies’ training camp (with coach Anthony Noreen there observing), these last two weeks have been their first time playing together.
Rupert said the practices the last four days have been important for the team as they continue to come together as a unit. But familiarity certainly already existed from those previous opportunities to work together.
Noreen himself, Rupert said, has been a great leader and coach. The team has fed off his energy early in the season to put in a lot of work early on. Some of it has begun paying off.
The beginning of the season has already had a solid launch point.
“We’ve got a pretty tight-knit group,” Brady Vail said. “We’ve been together for a while now with the guys that were here last year with the I guys I was with and playing against a lot of these guys through juniors. There are a lot of good relationships. I think we’re going to carry that onto the ice this week.
“Hopefully the way we played last week was definitely something we want to do again. That much energy and that much jump. We’ve got to be ready for this weekend and get the job done.”
