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Eric Weinrich has 1,082 National Hockey League games under his belt with seven teams and he will turn 39 on Dec. 19.
But the Gardiner native and former University of Maine All-America defenseman said there is plenty of excitement in the St. Louis Blues’ training camp this season after the lockout wiped out the 2004-2005 season.
“It feels great. It really does,” said Weinrich. “Everybody is so excited to get back into the thing we all live for. It feels like my first couple of years.”
Besides Weinrich, there are several other former Black Bears in NHL training camps including goalies Garth Snow (New York Islanders) and Mike Dunham (Atlanta), left winger Paul Kariya (Nashville) and defenseman Keith Carney (Anaheim).
“It’s good to see that,” said Weinrich. “There are a lot of Hockey East guys in our camp. That’s a nice shot in the arm for the league.”
Among them is former Providence College star Jon DiSalvatore, whose parents, Colombo Jr. and Karen (Withington), graduated from Brewer and Bangor High, respectively.
Greeting the NHL players this season are rule changes. Two-line passes will be allowed; goaltenders’ equipment will be smaller; goalies can only play the puck in a designated area and there will be shootouts if the game is still tied after overtime. And, again, the league is clamping down on clutching, grabbing and interference.
“It’s going to be interesting to see what happens,” said Weinrich. “Play in the defensive zone will be much different. It will be much faster. When you don’t have a lot of mauling and holding, the game really moves quickly. It’s pretty fun to play.”
He hopes eliminating the two-line pass will lead to “quicker transitions” and generate more offense. He said the elimination of the two-line pass infraction and the clampdown on holding should “benefit the way I play a little more.
“You’re going to have to use your head a little more and be in the right [defensive] position to use your stick,” said Weinrich.
Weinrich said training camp has the same feel as always.
“It’s like nothing ever happened. Nobody has missed a beat,” said Weinrich, who noted 2,500 fans showed up to a Blues scrimmage last week in a facility that holds 1,500.
“The people were excited,” said Weinrich. “We’re going to be doing a lot in the community. We’re going to have a lot of fan appreciation-type things. I honestly don’t think there’s going to be much of a backlash from missing the whole year.
“I actually think it may benefit the league [because it forced them to make changes],” said Weinrich, who played hockey for a month and a half in Austria last season and expects there to be an adjustment period for the players.
Weinrich, Kariya, Carney, Dunham and Snow should start the season with their NHL teams along with San Jose winger Niko Dimitrakos.
Dustin Penner has an outside shot to make Anaheim’s roster and had an assist in a recent exhibition game; Detroit’s Jimmy Howard and Todd Jackson will probably start the season in Grand Rapids (AHL); and Frank Doyle (New Jersey), Ben Guite (Boston), Doug Janik (Buffalo) and Mike Morrison (Edmonton) are also likely to begin the season in the AHL.
Former Maine defenseman Dave Nonis is back as the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks; ex-Bear winger John Tortorella returns as the coach of the defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning; Jay Leach, a former Maine assistant, is an assistant with the Washington Capitals, and former Maine defenseman Jack Capuano is a first-year assistant coach with the Islanders.
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