January 6 practice notes: Mersch ready to go; outdoor notes

UPDATE: Saturday’s game is scheduled to go on as planned with a 6 p.m. start. The Reign are slated to have morning skate on the outdoor ice at 11:15 a.m., which head coach Mike Stothers said wouldn’t really be a typical morning skate.

Good day from the city they call Bako. The Reign opted to practice indoors today at the Condors’ home arena, Rabobank. Here’s some notes from today’s session ahead of Saturday’s Outdoor Classic.

–The best kind of news for the Reign came in the form of Michael Mersch skating fully alongside his linemates Teddy Purcell and T.J. Hensick. Mersch, who suffered a lower-body injury last Friday against Stockton, is ready to go.

“It’s gotten a lot better, my lower-body injury has gotten a lot better since it happened on Friday night. Pretty happy with the way things have gone this week with treatment and everything,” said Mersch, who had given himself a 50-50 chance to play earlier in the week but now says he’s “fine.”

“Well, I know there was a couple ways we could have gone about it,” Mersch said when asked if he was surprised how quickly he was able to recover. “It was all about how I felt, just based on that. Like I said I think a lot of the healing process happened this week. Was able to earlier in the week. It was big to have — for me I had about a week between games, a little more, eight days. I think that helped too.”

The happiest person of all is head coach Mike Stothers, who is not only slated to get back his top-line left winger, but valuable center Andrew Crescenzi.

“It’s all pointing to Merschy returning which is huge for us, huge for him. Looks like Crescenzi will be able to play, too,” Stothers said. “We’ll leave it up to a game-time decision. We’ll see how things go after practice today and leading into tomorrow.”

He later made a stronger statement about the status of the two forwards: “So we’re getting two good veteran guys back, two penalty killers back. One being a faceoff guy, both good defensively, both guys that are valuable to us late in the game or protecting a lead. Can’t get those guys back fast enough.”

Crescenzi skated as an extra alongside Patrick Bjorkstrand, so his slot in Saturday’s morning skate — if there is one (more on that later) — will be a strong indicator of where he’ll slot in.

–Rain is still in the forecast for Saturday and although Bakersfield staff indicated a final decision would be made on Friday morning as to if the planned 6 p.m. game would move up to 1, no official announcement has been made.

“From a selfish standpoint for me, I hope it’s at 1,” Stothers said. “There’s no sense waiting around till six because anything can happen. You start at 1 and maybe it does start to drizzle and you’ve got a little delay. You can get through it. Ideally the best day for the weather seems to be today. I also suggested let [the alumni] play at 3 and we’ll play at 6. But the logistics, it’s not going to work out that way. Again, nobody asked me.”

One of his veterans is on the same page as far as the weather goes.

“I’ve never played in one,” said Teddy Purcell. “I hope it doesn’t rain all day. I’m not a very good skater as it is so I don’t need 10 pound of soggy gear slowing me down. I think it will be a good experience to play outside and hopefully the weather holds up a little bit.”

–Stothers opted to have his team practice indoors today while the Condors enjoyed an outdoor practice at the host stadium at Bakersfield College. Party pooper? Well, the coach had his reasons behind it than just having a quality skate.

“It’s more than that,” he said. “You’ve got the elements and during the course of the Christmas break, you think guys are going home to rest and everything else but in the meantime they’re flying cross-country through airports, a lot of times you’re with extended family, there’s a lot of handshaking, there’s germs, and guys get sick. We’ve had a number of guys who have had stuff go through them so the thought process was if we can control the environment that we’re in for at least a day, knowing full well that tomorrow we could be dealing with rain, we could be dealing with all kinds of elements. We’ve got a busy month of January. We don’t want to have guys missing because they’re sick. Once one guy gets it, then it seems to go through your whole team. We wanted to get the true read of the boards and we’ve got some guys wanting to get back so better ice conditions for the guys who are returning from injury. It just kind of, hopefully, prevents any further damage to your roster.”

–A star-studded alumni/celebrity game will take place tonight at 6 p.m. featuring Wayne Gretzky and Luc Robitaille captaining teams.

“Yeah, we’re going to stop by,” Stothers said. “As far as the players go, we left it open to them if they want to go. It’s at 6 so that’s right in the middle of their normal, creature of habit, when they go to dinner. So, we left it open to them. If they want to go, great. Again, the elements, don’t want them being outside unless they’re properly dressed. Quite honestly, some of those guys that are playing, our guys have never heard of, which is shocking. There’s going to be some great, great talent on that alumni game. It’ll be great to see.”

–Recently called-up center from Manchester Daniel Ciampini centered the fourth line with Michael Latta and Sam Herr. He’ll wear jersey No. 34 with Ontario.

–Spoke briefly with head equipment manager Trevor Simpson about how his role changes for the outdoor game. Simpson, who’s in his second year at the position, said he brought along heaters, plenty of warm under gear clothing and of course … signature eye black.

–Joel Lowry (lower-body) remains out but did come with the team. Zach Trotman (upper-body) did not travel.