Coming into the start of the AIHL 2014 season, Sydney Bears coach Vlad Rubes looked for a strong start from the team. Rubes used off-ice training to keep the players together early with a strong pre-season on ice to test them early.

The Bears responded going 3-0-1-1 in their first five starts including a shutout in their first game against the Newcastle North Stars. Bears captain, Michael Schlamp acknowledged the effect the early off-ice training from Rubes had on bringing the team together.

“Every weekend pretty much from that start of the New Year we’ve been training off-ice,” Schlamp said. “Vlad was there every week pushing the guys hard and it really got us prepared for the season and got us in good shape with mainly just a good attitude and atmosphere with the boys. We’ve got a lot of new players this year and a lot of young guys. It was just a good atmosphere.”

Taking it game-by-game with a young team, the start was exciting for not only the rookies but also the team as a whole in getting pumped for the season. Rubes credits the boost of fresh players as furthering the transition of the club for the better, particularly with the success in young local talent with international experience like Alec Stephenson, who is doing good things with the ice time he gets.

“This year we have the boost of good imports and two guys from the national team where we had no one in previous years,” Rubes said. “Imports are playing well, as are [Michael] Schlamp and Cameron [Todd]. It helps going from having one good line, to having two with a third line helping.”

Rubes is pleased with his current line up and reports sophomore season Bears player Lee Turner as having a strong start, not only fitting in well but playing on the first line and playing well with the imports.

“I think we can be quite happy with what we have at the moment,” Rubes said. ”Though it would be good to get a defencemen playing on the national team, we don’t yet, so we just have to deal and work with what we have.”

Though wishing for more experience on the blue line, Rubes has rookie defencemen stepping up well without previous experience in the league, and views 19-year old rookie Jarrod Smith as a player to watch this season.

Rubes notes there have been mistakes with the team, but with a great goalie in import Daniel Palmkvist between the pipes they’ve done well in the first five with the last few weeks being tough after losing the last four with up to five players missing from the squad, including Schlamp with injury and several players at the IIHF World Inline Championships.

In his fifteen years in the AIHL, Rubes has witnessed the expansion and the changing dynamic of ice hockey in Australia. He credits the quality of imports as contributing to having a better league and encouraging local talent.

“I think the quality of the imports has changed tremendously,” Rubes said. “When we started, it was good enough to have some Junior B players from Canada. Now we get guys that have played at least college hockey in the States, some kind of hockey in Europe or some minor professional league experience in North America.”

“I think the better the import is, the better he fits with local players because all of us can see that he’s a good player. It’s a bonus if he’s a good guy.”

Imports have been noticeable in the Bears line up with Dane Ludolph leading the team with 17 points from eleven games, and on a point streak from the start of season. Sean Hamilton Steen is leading scorer for the Bears with eight goals in eleven games. Ben Di Marco has also been strong with eight points from 10 games.

Rubes believes improvement in local talent came about also from increased access to information on YouTube and other forms of media to keep up with new training methods abroad. This has had the carry on effect of more local  talent developing and spending years overseas to play college or in Europe, with the national team producing improved results in a competitive division.

Internationally, Australia competes against teams with year round professional hockey players, making it an even larger commitment for our side having to take time off from their full-time work. With three caps representing Australia, Schlamp admits it’s a big commitment but we can improve.

“We’re always just one step away,” he said. “Even this year we let a couple of games slide where we were pretty close to a silver medal. Hopefully we’ll get some young players coming up and that’ll do the trick.”

This is the final piece of our three story series on Vlad Rubes. We thank Vlad and Michael Schlamp for their thoughts throughout this series.