You can’t blame them for being a little more excited to play some meaningful games. The Soo Greyhounds open the Ontario Hockey League regular season on Friday night against the Windsor Spitfires at the Essar Centre.

You can’t blame them for being a little more excited to play some meaningful games.

The Soo Greyhounds open the Ontario Hockey League regular season on Friday night against the Windsor Spitfires at the Essar Centre.

Aside from a pair of exhibition games over the weekend, much of the past three weeks have been spent with scrimmages and practices.

“It’s been a long training camp without a lot of games for us so we’ve been practicing a lot,” said Greyhounds Coach Drew Bannister. “You can kind of see that there’s some tension but there’s a lot of excitement too for the guys that have been here before. They know and understand what’s happening. For the coaching staff, it’s been a long month and a half of preparing for this point. It will be nice when Friday comes and we can get to work.”

With six players attending National Hockey League training camps, not including potential overage players Michael Bunting (Arizona) and Tyler Ganly (Carolina), numbers during practices have been low.

“The most difficult thing is the practice time and trying to keep the kids interested with the group of guys that we’ve had because a lot of days we’ve only had 13 skaters and one goalie,” said Bannister.

Bannister added that practices have seen the coaches working less on situational play and more on skills.

“Just keeping the kids interested and working on basic skills and getting their habits, work ethic and details where we want them to be,” Bannister said of what practices recently have been like. “It’s not a lot of team play or situational stuff that we do just because there’s just not enough guys to go through a practice.”

With sophomore defenceman Gustav Bouramman (Minnesota) arriving in town on Tuesday, Bannister said he expects “a minimum of three (more) guys back,” as Friday’s opener approaches.

Defenceman Colton White (New Jersey), forward Blake Speers (New Jersey) and goaltender Brandon Halverson (New York Rangers) were expected to be back in town ahead of Friday night.

Halverson is questionable for Friday’s game after suffering an injury during the annual red/white game on Sept. 4.

On Tuesday the team announced that goaltender Dougie Newhouse has signed a standard player contract with the team and could fill in should Halverson not be ready on Friday.

American forwards Tim Gettinger and Jack Kopacka are slated to participate in the USA Hockey All-American prospects game in Buffalo on Thursday but Bannister expects both to be ready to play Friday along with White, Speers and Bouramman.

The team is still awaiting word on if/when Jared McCann (Vancouver) and Zach Senyshyn (Boston) will be returning to the team.

“We’re still waiting to hear about them,” said Bannister. “It’s something that’s out of our control. Until we hear anything it’s just status quo.”

The pair were first round picks by their respective NHL clubs, McCann in 2014 and Senyshyn in 2015.

The OHL schedule officially opens on Thursday night with three games, including the Peterborough Petes hosting the Ottawa 67’s, the Flint Firebirds (formerly the Plymouth Whalers) on the road to take on the Saginaw Spirit and the Windsor Spitfires hosting the Erie Otters.

“It’s an exciting time, OHL Commissioner David Branch said on Wednesday. “There’s that special energy with the start of a new season. As a league, we’re so very fortunate to have the best young, junior-aged players in the world playing in our league with lots of new talent coming in. The facilities we enjoy, the incredible coaching and the outstanding support program that we have in place for our players starting with our scholarship program allow us to attract some of the best young players in the world.”

In a conference call on Wednesday, Branch also discussed the possibility of the OHL taking part in another outdoor game.

Branch told reporters that in order for the league to make an outdoor game a viable option, it would be something that would have to be done in conjunction with another outdoor event due to the sheer magnitude of organizing such an event.

“There’s an appetite around that and it’s a fabulous presentation of our game,” said Branch. “There is so much involved in terms of the logistics and to ensure that it’s safe and friendly to fans, players and everyone participating.

“In all likelihood going forward, the only time we can reasonably think of doing an outdoor game is if it’s in concert with another outdoor game that the NHL is presenting,” Branch added. “We have reason to believe that there are some coming forward in the near future.”

The league held a pair of outdoor games at Comerica Park in Detroit two years ago in conjunction with the NHL’s Winter Classic.