With any sport you can expect an injury from time to time, especially when it is a highly physical contact game like hockey. Unfortunately for the Drayton Valley Thunder, regularity of these injuries is higher than normal with a total of seven players being out of the lineup so early in the season.
“You always have injuries but the quantity that we’ve been experiencing right now is a little bit unusual. So you can’t really prepare for that,” says Fran Gow, head coach of the Thunder. “The only thing that sort of helps you along the way is the number of players you currently have on the roster, plus the availability of some affiliate players, which we’ve had to use on more then one occasion.”