BY SCOTT
HADDOW
In late August, a select group of Sudbury Wolves will stand on
the grounds of the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp in
Europe.
It's all part of the special fall training camp for the club,
which includes them spending eight days in Poland.
During that time, the Wolves will play a series of exhibition games against junior teams from Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia. The players will also be exposed to numerous significant historical landmarks in Europe. Wolves brass hopes it will give them an enhanced sense of how different the world could have been if not for the brave fight put up by the Allied Forces to defeat Adolf Hitler's Nazi army.
"Not too many Major Junior teams have done something like
this," said Wolves head coach and GM Mike Foligno.
"It's an opportunity of a lifetime. It's going to give us a great chance to really bond as a team before the season starts.
We're going to train really hard over there and play some
games against quality European competition."
The trip will open the players' eyes.
"Not only are they going to experience a different brand of
hockey, but a different culture and lifestyle all together,"
said Foligno. "They will be exposed to a part of history that
most of these players will only ever read about or see on
television. It's going to be something else to walk through a
concentration camp in Auschwitz. It's something no one gets to
do everyday. It's a great opportunity for all of us, not just
the players, to get a sense of the atrocities that took place
in World War II."
Players will form strong bonds.
"We want the players to come back with a sense of being and
how fortunate we really are," said Foligno. "We live in a great
country and are privileged to be able to do what we do. I hope
there will be relationships established that will carry on for
years down the road. Maybe we will set a precedent and show
Major Junior teams should reach out and go to different
countries and expand the borders of the CHL and let everyone in
the world know what we are all about, the kind of people we
are, the kind of hockey we play."
The Wolves took notice of other hockey teams that travelled
great distances to bond and went on to enjoy tremendous
success. Wolves president and governor Mark Burgess hopes the
Poland trip will have a similar effect on his club.
"(When) you take a core group of guys over and get them
spending time together and learn about different things, it
might add that little extra thing (to win)," said Burgess.
"Where we are going in Poland is a typical Polish town, the
same size as Sudbury with the same core values - family,
mining."
The club leaves on August 26.
