It was a somber rebuilding season for the Weyburn Midget AAA Southern Range Gold Wings.

However, a new head coach has plans to hopefully turn things around.

Tom Harrison, who farms north of Regina, put his name into the hat after the resignation of Mike Rooney in early March.

It was announced last week that Harrision would be taking over the position.

Harrison is familiar with the team as he spent most of last season watching the girls play; his 16-year-old daughter Kaitlyn played forward in her first season as a Gold Wing.

"It was tough, they're all young girls, very few veterans came back," Harrison said, adding that after a 0-28 season it is tough to set win-loss goals.

"(We) don't want to be measured by wins-losses, we want to be measured by how these kids develop and hopefully we get to be competitive and knock out a few wins."

Positives Harrison noticed about the squad was their work ethic and attitudes.

"Even in the last playoff game when we were up against Saskatoon, we were getting beat 10 to nothing and they still went out and they battled and they competed and they worked as hard as they could right to the end," he said.

"Hopefully they have a good work ethic and we build on that work ethic to develop them and that's where we'll start."

Harrison's plans will get underway at Spring Camp being held this weekend at Crescent Point Place.

The focuses will be towards strength and stamina conditioning as well as individualized plans for the players. Harrison has arranged for Mike Johnson, a conditioning expert from Weyburn, to work with the team.

"I am planning to run a few informal session over the summer where girls can come and have a skate and maybe start building some chemestry and spend lots of time over the summer on conditioning," Harrison said.

He added that the girls will have to make the commitments away from the team as well; only two players from last season were from Weyburn while some were as far north as Elrose and Star City.

"These girls are mainly rural girls and they'll have to do some training on their own over the course of the summer," he said.

Once the roster is picked after Fall Camp, Harrison's will continue with conditioning to build up endurance.

After Christmas, the plan is to hopefully play more games, taper towards playoffs, "and see how competitive we can be."

"I guess as a person I'm probably competitive but the other thing is I always like to see young kids, young people succeed and develop in whatever they are doing," Harrison said.

On the family ranch, the Harrison's bring city kids to the farm and show them how cattle is rasied. He enjoys the responses of kids that are really interested.

"And same with sport too, it's good to see the kids succeed and enjoy succeeding," he added.

Harrison has coached his daughter previously in Lumsden, Regina and Moose Jaw and his love for the sport of hockey brought him back to coaching after taking last season off.

And at age 57, Harrison still has the passion to lace up his skates for rec hockey as well.

"And maybe some day these kids will still be playing while they are in their 30's and 40's and still enjoying it."