Written By BRIAN LOCKHART

Small town hockey will once be back in action when Junior C hockey clubs start the regular season this weekend.

The North Carruthers Division of the Provincial Junior Hockey League has eight teams in the line-up this season – all returning teams from last year.

Twelve teams had a chance to see how the new squads are gelling when the Alliston Hornets hosted their annual Junior C tournament on Sept 6 – 8, at the New Tecumseth Recreation Centre.

The tournament featured a round-robin style schedule following by a semi-final and final game on Sunday.

For the defending division champion Hornets the annual tournament is a good experience for new players to the team to get to know the Hornets and work with veteran players.

“I think we're in pretty good shape right now,” said Hornets assistant coach Travis Chapman about the new line-up. “We had a pretty competitive training camp. We've got a lot of returning players from last year. We weren't looking to fill a ton of spots but the guys who have come in have really competed hard and that made some choices hard and some more difficult.”

The squad had to fill the positions left open by retiring players from last year. This season they've added six new players to the line-up.

“We were a pretty young group last year,” Chapman said. “We had the three over-agers leave from last year and a few guys left that went to play Junior B or Junior A somewhere else. We're returning a lot of the same faces.”

The Stayner Siskins are back this season. The Siskins had a strong season last year finishing in first place in the division but took a loss in the semi-final round to end their season.

Other teams in the Carruthers division include Caledon, Penetang, Midland, Huntsville, Orillia, and Schomberg.