After a 2021 season that saw them play only two teams – Queen's and Toronto – and go 4-2-2 in the regular season, head coach Zeeshan Minhas is excited for what lies ahead in 2022.
 
"We have a young and ambitious team," Minhas said. "We have 12 rookies, and only four seniors who are graduating. The rest of the team is all new."
 
Despite the team's relative inexperience, Minhas is optimistic about the outlook for the Lions this season.
 
"They have skill, they have the knowledge. Experience – not as much of course because they're young," he said. "But in terms of confidence, yes; I'm confident we are going to do well, because of course these kids know how to play."
 
Minhas insists that while the team is young, the Lions are not in rebuilding mode.
 
"I don't like to use that term, because these kids are not beginners," he asserted. "It's a retool; let's put it that way."
 
Being at the helm of a young team isn't anything new for Minhas, who reminds us of the 2017 squad that was also young and inexperienced. It went on to win an OUA title.
 
As for this year's group, he pointed to rookies like Natalie Brown, Emily Essar, Jocelyn Boyd and Elyse Ives as players who could make an immediate impact in their first seasons in red and white.
 
"Elyse is a kid everybody's gotta keep an eye on," Minhas said. "She's probably going to be our top scorer. 
 
Another is Abby Thompson, who was just selected to the national U-21 Nextgen National Program by Field Hockey Canada.
 
As Minihas mentioned, there are only a handful of seniors returning to the team this year. Those are Amira Brar, Prava Sandhu, Frances St. Louis, and Serena Vilde. They will obviously be relied upon to provide leadership to a young Lions core.
 
"Of course they're experienced, Minhas said," but they also have that winning mentality because they've been around the program. So that is really important to bring that culture back to this new group.
 
"It's not easy to win, it takes work, so they can share those experiences. They know what it takes to win and how hard you need to work."
 
In another nod to the Lions program, Sandhu was selected to Canada's Senior Development Team.  
 
The team has played a few non-conference games to prepare for the season, and Minhas was impressed with what he saw.
 
"Were we cohesive? No, because we just started last week," he admitted. "So we didn't have a lot of time to get everybody as a cohesive unit. But, what it showed me is these kids can play. We were off a little bit, but not to the extent that we have 12 new players, and we don't know what we're doing.

"Now, we just have to bring it together."
 
The Lions will get their first chance to bring it together on Saturday night when they host the McGill Martlets in the first of back-to-back games on back-to-back days.