The title defence has started for Winkler's Eric Fehr and the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Penguins won the Stanley Cup back in June over the San Jose Sharks and are ready to try and repeat as champions.

The pre-season schedule got under a couple of days ago, and training camp continues to move forward as the many players fight for a roster spot.

"It's been good to get back into the swing of things," said Fehr. "It takes a bit of time to get the hands and feet moving together. It feels great to be out there with the guys and to be a part of it. We had a pretty competitive camp this year. Obviously being the defending champs, we want to come out of the gate hard and we know there's going to be a bulls-eye on our backs. The coaches ran us through a pretty intense camp. I'm pretty happy with where I am personally, and where the team is as well."

Last year in December the Penguins made a coaching change and promoted Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, Pittsburgh's AHL affiliate team, coach, Mike Sullivan, to the NHL level. With a new coach comes a new coaching style, new systems, and building new relationships between players and the coach.

"I think it'll help us iron out the kinks a little bit on our system. We learned a lot when he came in and took over the team. In the middle of the season, it's a little difficult to really get a handle on how he exactly wants you to play," said Fehr when asked how a full training camp under coach Sullivan will help the team. "We improved upon it as the season went on and into the playoffs, but I think there's still some stuff he wants to do with us to make us even better."

There hasn't been a team who won back-to-back Stanley Cups since the Detroit Red Wings did it under the guidance of Scotty Bowman in 1997 and 1998, eight is nineteen years ago and before that was the Penguins in 1991 and 1992.

"We know it's going to be a big challenge. Every year, whoever the winner is, when you go and play against them the next year, you know about it. You kind of use it as a measuring stick, and you want to see where your team is at," said Fehr. "It's going to be difficult for us in that fact. I think our team is up for the challenge. We have pretty much the same players as we had last year. Like I said we are looking to improve upon what we did last year, with a few system tweaks or just getting a training camp under our belt with the whole coaching staff."

Having the World Cup Of Hockey final going on at the moment, really shows an organizations depth noted Fehr, and allows some of the younger guys to get into some game action along the way.

Fehr stated last year's Stanley Cup championship really hasn't been mentioned all that much around the room. The team is focused in on preparing for the upcoming season as they look to defend their title. One day Fehr is looking forward to is the banner raising, during the Penguins home opener against the Washington Capitals.

As for the summer, Fehr said he took a little bit of time off to heal the body fully for the upcoming season.

"Probably about the same amount of time that I would usually take. It took us a little further into the summer," said Fehr. "I didn't get as much time to work out and do my training, but I feel better and stronger than I have in years past. I took that extra time to make sure the body was feeling good. I tried to train a little bit smarter this year. Coming into camp this year, I feel the best I have in a long time, so hopefully I did something right."