The Merritt Centennials held the first of two spring evaluation camps on the weekend, with close to 100 skaters on hand from across Canada and the United States.

“There was some excellent talent,” said Cents’ head coach and GM Joe Martin. “The games were quite low-scoring, which was a testament to the good goaltending and strong defensive play.”

The players were divided into five teams, and scrimmages were held Friday night, all day Saturday and on Sunday till about 3 p.m.

“Like last year, we made things a bit more competitive, and had the teams competing to play in the championship game on Sunday afternoon,” said Martin. “We had a few prizes for the winners, like candy bars and so on. Everyone seemed to like the format.”

The majority of the players in attendance at this weekend’s camp came from British Columbia. There were also some from Alberta, and even as far away as Newfoundland, Connecticut and Colorado. Many had Junior B experience, while others last played in major midget or elite prep school/hockey academy varsity programs.

Several Merritt minor hockey products attended the camp, including goaltenders Holden King and Colton Macaulay, and forward Sunil Sahota.

Other participants of interest were Josh Van Unen from Kamloops (the younger brother of Cents’ rookies Michael and Rylan Van Unen), Slade Desharnais from Fort St. James (son of former Centennial Guy Prince), Nolan Corrado (son of former Centennial Pat Corrado), Ezra Paddock (son of former Merritt RCMP officer Dave Paddock), Luke Recchi from Kamloops (nephew of NHL hockey legend Mark Recchi), and Michael Araki-Young from Vancouver (whose dad grew up in Merritt).

Martin stated that several players from the weekend evaluation camp have been invited to the second spring camp in Abbotsford in June, and to the Cents’ main camp in late August.

“We want to create a pretty competitive environment for these players, as well as for the 14 returnees from this past season’s Centennials team,” said the head coach.