Rivermen assistant coach Brent Thompson might just be smarter than the rest of us. He's spending one of the hottest weeks of the summer hosting the teams' annual youth hockey camp on the cool ice at Owens Center.

"With the heat this week has been incredible. We’re fortunate to have this nice cool environment in here. They guys and the kids like it and it makes the energy level nice and high."

Rivermen Trent Whitfield and Charles Linglet are also instructors here, seeing the game from a different perspective.

"It’s harder than I thought it was to be a coach," admitted Linglet. "It’s a good thing that we’ve got Brent around because he’s got most of the drills set up already. I think I’m learning a little bit."

There are no contracts at Owens Center, no scouts taking notes in the stands. The kids participating in camp are there because they love the game and that helps their Rivermen instructors get back to their hockey roots.

"When you were a kid you just went out and played," said Whitfield. "You didn’t care about the X’s and O’s. That’s what I wanted to do today. They wanted to play games, so you just get out there and just play the game, even things like pushing the net around or pulling each other down the ice. Just having fun again and making them laugh."

Sometimes it's hard to tell whose having more fun, the kids or the instructors.

"We’re all big kids ourselves" said Thompson. " We all got to play a game or be involved in a game that we’ve played since we were 4 or 5 years old. Now we’re trying to do the same thing as when we were growing up. I remember how much fun it was when I was going to those hockey schools."