HALIFAX – It’s been just under seven months since Peter Schaale last kicked a ball around with his HFX Wanderers FC teammates. But now the German defender, who left HFX to return to university last August but re-signed in the off-season, and most of the players on the new-look squad are back at it with pre-season training camp having kicked off this week. "It's definitely fun again," Schaale told CanPL.ca. "I feel like all the guys have been missing it, I've been missing it myself and am very happy to be back in a team environment, very happy to be back in Halifax." There was an energetic buzz as players cooled down after Day 1 on the field on Wednesday. It was more first-day-of-summer-camp than nervous back-to-school vibes – perhaps, because with back-to-school you know most of the faces returning. That’s not the case with the Wanderers with only seven of the 21-player roster consisting of returnees from 2019. Despite the high turnover, things don’t feel that different compared to last camp for Schaale. "Obviously it's a different team, it's new guys, it's new faces and a couple old faces as well. But I mean the culture of the team and the club is set by the club itself, by the employees, by the coach, by the fans, by the city. I think the players just have to buy into it. It's not going to be that big a change overall, just the playing style is going to be different," Schaale offered. RELATED READING: CPL pre-season roster tracker: How each team is shaping up One of the new faces, former Valour FC midfielder Louis Béland-Goyette, is already familiar with many of his new teammates. Valour and the Wanderers faced each other five times in the 2019 regular season, and the Winnipeg-based team was knocked out of the Canadian Championship in the second round by HFX. "It's good that a couple of guys, we know each other, even if I was on the other side last year," Béland-Goyette told CanPL.ca. He later added: "Right now, it's just to get the chemistry and to get to know every player, how we play, every player's different so just to try and mesh everything." Getting to know each other and develop familiarity is high priority for coach Stephen Hart in the early days of training camp. "We will do the physical side of our training and the playing side. We’re just going to leave them alone and let them sort of figure it out, each other’s qualities. Hopefully they communicate with each other what they like and then we will take over as we get deeper into the camp," Hart told CanPL.ca. On the first day of camp on Wednesday, Hart and the coaching staff kept it light at the beginning with keep-away games, getting loose and extended running. The coaching staff plans on making some small adjustments with the physical part of training camp, being "a little more measured" and taking into consideration the surface they’re practicing on. The team trains on artificial turf at the BMO Soccer Centre, home of Soccer Nova Scotia. "I think last year maybe at times it might have contributed to niggling little injuries we had," Hart said. Yes, it’s hard work to be a professional soccer player but the word fun came up plenty in the early stages of camp, both from the players and staff. "Everybody's positive, which is a good point. Everybody is focused so far, that's very important. But now it's the work," Béland-Goyette said. "Pre-season is always a lot of hard work so that you can bring that into the season. We know how hard the season is, a lot of games, a lot of travelling. So, we have to be physically and mentally ready to go for the first game right away against York." HFX Wanders FC open the 2020 CPL regular season on the road vs. York9 FC (April 13) and Pacific FC (April 17), before hosting Atlético Ottawa in their home opener on April 25.
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