A new season is approaching for the Midget AA Bruins, and they'll be entering it with some new faces behind the bench. 

They announced last week that Riley Hengen would be taking over from Robin Ulrich as Head Coach, and he would be joined by Dustin Stepp and Jordan Cooney as Assistants.

"I think we're leaving the team in a good place. There's probably going to be a little bit of turnover in terms of the fact we had a good chunk of kids graduate and move up, either to prep school or to midget AAA, but I know there'll be some really good returnees that'll give him (Hengen) a good core to build off," stated Ulrich. 

She shared that she had a good deal of teaching and time commitments tugging at her attention, and so she decided that it was time "to step back and give someone else an opportunity."

Hengen has spent most of his time on the ice in the crease, playing a few games in the SJHL for the Estevan Bruins and Weyburn Red Wings, as well as in the PJHL, ACHA with Minot State University, and most recently with the Oxbow Huskies in the Big Six Hockey League.

"As my career with Minot State was coming to an end, I'd always that coaching could possibly be in my future. When I heard that the job was available this year, I had talked to (Cooney and Stepp), we'd kind of joked around for years that we could coach together one year, so I guess that we kind of figured there was no better time than the present," he explained.

Hengen said he'd be interested in sticking with the team for longer than a year's term, depending on the rest of life. At this point, he's optimistic about the upcoming season.

"By the sounds of it, I think we have nine eligible guys who are returning this year, depending on if anybody else makes a AAA team or something like that. (There's) a couple of rumors of guys coming back from a AAA team or two, so I think we'll be in pretty good shape."

The team of Hengen, Stepp and Cooney will bring a range of experience to the group, and plan to focus on their respective areas of expertise.

"I'll be dealing with the goalies and the defense, I'll be handling most of the stuff on the back end. Jordan and Dustin, they've played forward all their lives so they'll be running that side of things. Between the three of us, I think we've got a pretty good balance of hockey knowledge, all different aspects of the game," Hengen related.

"We're hoping to have a pretty well conditioned, disciplined team. As long as we can find the right 19 guys to play together, then I think a championship is definitely what our goals are for this season."

"It's a new challenge for all three of us on the coaching staff. We're all first year coaches, but we all have quite a bit of hockey knowledge, so we're all excited to get going on tryouts in a couple of weeks," he added.

Tryouts get underway September 21st to 23rd.