A little past the midway point of the season for the Pride (5-6-0, 15 points) and despite changes in lineups and players coming and going for international play the group has been able to build chemistry and a sense of cohesiveness.
“We’ve got a strong squad so we’ve got cover in all the various positions but obviously I think everything goes back to the [team’s] continuity,” Pride Head Coach Tom Sermanni said.
“When you’ve had, made changes within the team, there has still been continuity –next week probably will be the greatest number of changes both personnel wise and probably positionally.”
Next week’s game against Boston will be minus six starters—the largest the club has had to endure all season—this time due to Olympic play.
“You know while they are gone hopefully we can continue to win games and integrate them when they come back and it’s like they never left,” defender Toni Pressley said.
“We’re [are wanting to keep] winning and doing well and succeeding so that they don’t have to come back and make up extra work, we can do it for them while they are gone.”
As far as juggling the outside call ups Coach Sermanni says he knew that coming in to the season and built his team for the long haul.
“It would have been short sided just to say if I was planning for the Olympics I probably wouldn’t have picked any players that were going to the Olympics. So the key thing for us when we set out was to try and build the best team that we can” Sermanni added.
Sermanni understands that other teams will be losing some of their best players too and that’s when he will have to lean on its depth.