NEW ULM — Close to 70 youth hockey skaters and eight goaltenders ranging in age from 8 to 15 are midway through the six weeks of the Eagles hockey camp at the New Ulm Civic Center.

“Typically what we do is an hour on the ice and an hour off ice,” said New Ulm coach Ryan Neumann, who is running the camp. “We have had to modify the hours because of the [Brown County] fair. We are done Aug. 30 — we have been going Wednesdays and Sundays, We have had pretty good numbers. I think that we are up 15 skaters from last year.”

Neumann said that the skaters are all broken into different age groups.

“The majority of the skaters are boys but we have 10 girls in the camp,” Neumann said.

Neumann said that the main focus of the camp is skill work.

“Some nights are more boring than others but we always try and implement some small area or game because you do not want to lose the kids’ attention,” he said. “If they do a full hour on ice, what we typically do is 40 minutes of skill work and 20 minutes of some small area games.”

Neumann is assisted by New Ulm Steel head coach Andrew Kolb along with former New Ulm High School players Brach and Bayler Kraus (who is skating with the Steel this year) along with Brandon Mehlhop, who is also skating with the Steel this season. Current New Ulm High School goaltender Jack Raymond is also helping. Nate Miller and Ethan Kraus are also helping along with Jack Fairbairn and Glavine Schugel.

“It is all about the hockey program here and helping it grow,” Neumann said.

Both Mehlhop and Bayler Kraus, who have signed with the Steel for this coming season were impressive in the Steel tryout camp that was held this past weekend in New Ulm. At least 47 players who had not yet been tendered by the Steel participated and two players from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, were offered tenders with one signing.

PREP FINISHES 2ND: Creighton Prep, which won this year’s Upper Midwest Classic in New Ulm, finished second in the American Legion World Series losing 2-1 to Henderson, Nevada, in the title game in Shelby, North Carolina.