The Central Plains Capitals open their Manitoba AAA Midget Hockey Season up today on the road.

They're in Brandon to face the Wheat Kings to kick things off. Central Plains finished last season in 5th place, 7 points better than the 6th place Wheat Kings. The Caps fell in 5 games to Yellowhead in the first round of the playoffs, Brandon was eliminated by the Winnipeg Thrashers in 3 straight.

Caps' Head Coach Brad Gnidziejko says they've got a really strong back end.

"The real lynchpin of our D is going to be speed and smarts. We're hoping we can utilize the speed of our defenseman, we've got some real fast D and some real smart guys, and we're hoping to get points out of them."

The Caps fell 3-0 to Brandon in the pre-season, but Gnidziejko feels it's going to be a different game tonight.

"Like anything else it's any given Sunday. So we're going to be ready to go, and I think they're going to have some trouble handling our back end. So I think it's going to be a pretty even match-up but we're hoping for the best on our side."

The Caps and Wheat Kings face off at 7:30 p.m.