truebluefan

As usual, Janeth Arcain was absent for the start of Comets training camp on Sunday, keeping intact a trend she began in 1997 with the start of the WNBA.

But as training camps for the WNBA's 10th season opened Sunday, Arcain wasn't Van Chancellor's only missing piece at the Toyota Center practice court.

Sheryl Swoopes, who last year became the first three-time WNBA Most Valuable Player, was rounding out a season of professional basketball competition in Italy. Dominique Canty also was playing professionally overseas.

Dawn Staley, the perennial WNBA All-Star and Temple University women's coach who announced earlier this year that this summer would be her last as a pro, was winding up preliminary duties as an assistant coach for USA Basketball's world championship squad.

Eight players on the Comets' 21-person training camp roster were missing but should begin arriving next week, Chancellor said.

Those on hand now, including Tina Thompson, Michelle Snow and three of the Comets' four 2006 WNBA draft picks, had the coach ecstatic after the initial two-hour workout.

"I really like our team," he said. "It's one of (our) most exciting teams. I was as excited about this workout as I've ever been. I'm pumped up and enthused; I think this is going to be a team I love to coach.

"I think it's going to be a good team, a really good team. We're just in a division (the WNBA Western Conference) where it'll just go in or out at the end. But we're good enough (to win it)."

Complete Article by W.H. STICKNEY JR.