Eurocamp Summer Stars heading to Philly

The Eurocamp Summer Stars Team 2000 will be heading to Philadelphia for the 6th annual OneHockey.com International Tournament in June - one of the biggest AAA summer hockey tournaments in North America.

Eurocamp Summer Stars founder Randy Edmonds says the team will be comprised of local players and a handful of other players from the Toronto and Ottawa area.

The Eurocamp Summer Stars has really developed over the past four years with 5 teams last summer playing in various tournaments and now other local coaches taking teams to southern ontario as well," said Edmonds who is coaching a Slovenian team in the top division in Austria this season.

"The players are realizing that hockey does not need to stop in March the only problem is we can barely compete with the best regional team and now we have many local coaches starting up their own team which divides us and makes it more difficult to compete plus thru the Eurocamp program we have had many of our top players go to other programs in Ontario which I think is great that the kids get the opportunity but it makes it difficult to continue with our program when we are so depleted."

Edmonds says the program is allowing more local kids to get noticed and its creating opportunities for them as Caleb Rich and Zach Roy will join Toronto Pro Hockey while Brady Lyle will play with the Toronto Bulldogs and Dylan Bond with the Ottawa Riot.

"Those are examples of kids getting the opportunity," said Edmonds.

"Toronto Pro Hockey was ranked number 2 in North America in summer hockey programs and the Toronto Bull Dogs are up there as well."

Edmonds believes that hockey in the spring and summer is critical part of hockey development.

"If you want to play hockey at a high level and you are from North Bay spring or summer hockey is a must it is the only time you can compete against the best and see where you stack up.It shows that we have kids at the younger ages in our region that rank in the top of kids their own age group in the province the question is how do you keep them there until Bantam and Midget - the Peewee Trappers will help with that," he said.

For more information on the Eurocamp Summer Stars go to www.eurocamp.ca.