The 2022-23 season will begin a new era of Reading Royals hockey.
With a first-year head coach in James Henry and a team of fresh players and youthful optimism, Reading heads into the season amid an overhanging sense of unfamiliarity, but committed to achieving a level of success that has become quite familiar to the franchise.
“You don’t have as many returning guys as maybe you’d like or expect, but that’s how the ECHL goes,” Henry said Tuesday following the third day of Reading’s 2022 training camp. “You have a lot of turnover. When you have a young, inexperienced group, everybody needs to prove themselves, especially the coaching staff.”
With a team composed primarily of newcomers, the Royals’ eagerness to prove themselves starts with Henry, who takes over for former coach Kirk MacDonald. A former Royals player and the head coach for more than five years, MacDonald resigned in June to become a head coach of the Dubuque Fighting Saints in the United States Hockey League, a top junior league.
Following MacDonald’s departure, Henry was promoted from assistant coach to head coach after serving under MacDonald for one season. A former ECHL player himself, Henry is eager to bring what he learned as a player and as an assistant into his new role.
“Kirk and I had similar thought processes for some systematic things, so there will be some similarities there,” Henry said. “In one season, (I) tried to learn as much as I could from Kirk.”
Henry is coaching a team that has 20 players who did not take the ice for the Royals a season ago. Reading’s 28-man training camp roster features just eight returnees: forwards Tyler Kirkup, Charlie Gerard and Shane Sellar, and defensemen Will MacKinnon, Garrett McFadden, Dominic Cormier, Mason Millman and Mike Chen.
“We got a lot of new faces in here,” Cormier said. “It’s going to take a little while, but I think the guys are doing a great job of getting to know each other.”
Cormier, Millman, Chen and McFadden return after playing significant roles for the Royals last year. All four took the ice in 28 or more games, helping Reading tie a franchise record with 99 points in the regular season, win the ECHL North Division and Eastern Conference regular season title and advance to the second round of the Kelly Cup playoffs.
“The guys that came before us who have moved on definitely set a culture of winning and being a successful team,” McFadden said. “For the guys that come back, you want to pick up right where you left off.”
Residing between a pair of new goaltenders — Ty Hunter and Justin Kapelmaster — and a large group of fresh forwards, the Royals returning defensive core is expected to play a major role in the team’s success.
“We feel pretty strong on the back end,” McFadden said. “Each one of us wants to take a step forward in terms of leadership, (and) that’s a big key to us starting off right and setting the tone.”
Cormier made the biggest offensive impact last season, leading all Reading defensemen with 16 goals. Millman, a fourth-round pick by the Philadelphia Flyers in 2019, had an impressive 25 points in just 36 games.
“Hopefully, he can be one of those leaders on the back end that really dictates how this team should be playing,” Henry said of Millman. “He had a great second half of the season. We expect him to be at that mark already.”
Elsewhere on the ice, the Royals are focused on building chemistry among their new players. Reading’s training camp will continue through Oct. 18, and the roster must be trimmed to 21 active players by Oct. 19.
“They guys are working hard,” Henry said about building camaraderie. “That’s a bit of a work in progress.”
The new-look Royals will get their first opportunities to take the ice against another team in a pair of preseason games. Reading will play at Adirondack on Friday at 7 p.m. before hosting the Thunder at Santander Arena on Saturday at 7 p.m., which fans can attend for free with the donation of a canned food item.
With the preseason just days away and less than two weeks remaining before their regular season opener on Oct. 21 at Newfoundland, the Royals are eager to begin a new chapter.
“We’re an excited bunch,” McFadden said. “Everyone is ready to go.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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