We wanted to sign a core of kids because we wanted to lock up a few. But we also wanted to send a message about Maine kids.

Both of these guys are very similar players. They both have a lot of speed. They are fairly small, they are not huge guys, but they are fairly quick. They have terrific hands. The kind of game we want to play is really an up tempo style of play, very fast with a lot of puck movement and that is what these guys play.

Jon is a proven player. From what everyone tells me, he is quite a tenacious player.

He has a lot of experience starting off teams. From a marketing and promotion standpoint, he has experience, so that will really help me out a lot.

Nate is fairly well known by a lot of the other players. So we are hoping that kids will say, 'If he's playing there, maybe I can.' Kind of the herd mentality.

When people knew we were starting a franchise they started calling us. We interviewed coaches in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania and even West Virginia. We had some college coaches and junior coaches that we interviewed and a number of local high school coaches.