Excitement is building for a number of local athletes ahead of the Alberta Winter Games which kick off in just a few short weeks.

Lacombe's Brody Pearson will be lacing up his skates in Fort McMurray, on the blue line for the Zone 2 hockey team.

He was among 185 kids invited to a selection camp last month in Olds trying to land one of 40 spots for two zone teams, he explains what that experience was like.

“We had the 1st skate and it was basically a skills session and then we had a small area game and then we had 2 scrimmages against other teams”.

Pearson says competition was fierce with room for just a few D men on the zone teams

“56 or so trying out, like 8 teams and 7 D men per team, they took 12”.

Pearson currently plays with the Central Alberta Selects Pee Wee AA team, he'll be joined on the Zone 2 team by his teammate Chase Walker, who hails from Byemoor.  Other central Albertans who landed on the team include Red Deer’s Xaiden Bignell and Rhett Miller from Olds.

As for the future, Brody has his eyes set on playing Bantam AAA hockey next year and dreams of landing in the NHL.