Let's Play Hockey's 2020 Summer Hockey Guide

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SUMMER

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Developing grit in youth athletes

by JOSH LEVINE, Let’s Play Hockey Columnist Developing grit in youth athletes is probably one of the toughest tasks a coach and parent can try to take on. There isn’t an easy solution and understanding where a player should be at in terms of mental toughness, grit and competitiveness. Plus, it is hard to measure.

Because players have different personalities and develop at different rates, knowing how to respond to them is especially hard. Some athletes are born day one ready to fight anyone that challenges them – others are on the fast track to work as diplomats and therapists. A motivational technique that might be needed with one player is likely to have no effect or a negative impact on another.

So, how do we teach kids to be resilient and mentally tough? How do we get a player that would rather watch the play to engage in it?

First, we need to realize that for most youth athletes, they genuinely think they are going as fast and hard as they can. If we belittle kids by telling them, “You’re not working hard!” when they think they are and feel as if they are doing everything they can to work hard, the message can cause them to shut down. In their heads, they’re thinking, “I’m trying as hard as I can and dad still thinks I’m not. I’m tired of hearing that I need to work hard. I’m going to start ignoring him.”

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Imagine a Navy SEAL watching the average adult go through a workout or a tough day at the office. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if the adult thought he or she was going “all in” while the SEAL thought the workout or effort on the job was sub-par. Almost everyone, including myself, is in a state of learning when it comes to hard work and mental toughness. Can you imagine how offended we would be if someone told us we were “lazy” or “lacked a hard work ethic” (even if we know that we can push ourselves more)?

Second, we cannot expect to see players learn how to work harder and develop grit if they are going through monotonous and year-round training. Consider a Russian study from the 1950s that challenged one group of children to stand as long as they could, while a second group was simply asked to pretend they were soldiers on guard at their posts. The first group (monotonous, mundane training) lasted two minutes. The second group lasted 11!

When you hear complaints that kids don’t know how to work hard these days, perhaps we should take a look at how our sports have been structured. What if our obsession with drills and structure is contributing to kids lacking mental toughness and grit? I’ve witnessed this numerous times as a coach. Do a drill lacking in competitiveness and play with eight-year-olds and then try one that has those elements and you’ll see a major difference in work ethic.

Finally, we need to empower youth athletes for them to intrinsically develop grit. Very few will learn it by being yelled at. When an athlete understands that a coach or trainer cares about them and is genuinely invested in their well-being, they are far more likely to listen. Then, if we provide athletes with goals that require slightly more effort than they currently provide and they put in the work, we have hit the jackpot! The kids make the connection and their intrinsic

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When can my kid start skating?

by ANDY NESS, Let’s Play Hockey Columnist This is a question we receive time and time again. When is the right time to start my son or daughter into skating or even into hockey? I have received requests for skaters from the age of 2 up to the age of 75, and everything in between.

The big question is, when is a child ready to start skating?

Is getting them started early going to give them a leg up on everyone else? How much time do they need on the ice?

Should they start hockey first or learn to skate first? Finally, should they learn in a structured environment or an unstructured environment?

I would like to answer some of these questions and hopefully give the new parent to hockey or skating some advice. First, we have to examine when a child is ready. If a youngster just lays on the ice or cries the entire time, this is really doing no one any good. Try this for starters: Lace up your little one’s skates and have them walk back and forth on the rubber matting. If a child doesn’t have the strength or balance to walk on skates, then it’s not going to get any better on the ice. If the skater’s ankles wobble or tip inwards, they clearly don’t have the strength to get on the ice yet. Being stable on skates off the ice is the first key helping a skater get going. This age may be different for every youngster. A current Minnesota Wild player’s child is 3. He is now mobile on the ice. Others may start at 5, 6 or 7. There is no exact time to start. It really depends on the individual kid.

The most important thing when teaching youngsters is that every time a skater leaves the ice, you want them to have a smile on their face. This way, the next time they are going to go skating, they will be excited. With this said, many skills can be turned into games. Anything that gets the skater completely engaged is the key. Fantastic coaching with younger skaters is getting the skater to do the skills you want them to do without them even knowing. For example, kids

can pretend they’re driving cars (skating and turning) around and when you blow the whistle they have to park in a garage (practice stopping). Being creative, making up games and making sure the kids are engaged is going to feed the passion for skating, which is what we want.

This leads right into the next aspect for the younger skater – duration of time on the ice. Whether it is our camps or just skill sessions, with younger skaters we always want them leaving the rink wanting more. Sometimes parents will tell me that their 6-year-old had a 90-minute “structured” practice. Most of the time when this happens, about halfway through the practice the youngster usually asks, “When is this over?” It can tend to be too much.

Consistency is much more important than duration. For example, would it be better for an adult to do a three-hour workout just once a week or 45-minute workouts four days a week? It’s a no brainer. Consistency is king. The process of going day after day is what will reap the rewards. Even if you get a 20-minute skate, your youngster is getting more in the long run.

That brings me to the big debate: structure versus unstructured. In short, I believe both are extremely important.

However, you cannot have the unstructured until you have some structure. They work together. If you bring a beginning skater out on the ice, there is only so much “laying on the ice” a little one is going to do before they cry and want to get off the ice. Whether it is a coach or a parent, someone is going to have to help a skater get up, repeatedly. Marching, turning, stopping and gliding can all be aided by a good instructor. A good instructor will not only teach and help a youngster, but make it fun as well. With that said, a youngster, once mobile, can skate on their own. This is when you’ll see skaters go and play outdoors for hours on end. The mix between both structured ice time and unstructured ice time is the perfect recipe for improvement.

So what’s my answer to the question, “When can my kids start skating?” The best answer I can give is, “When they’re ready.” Each kid may be ready at different times, and they’re not going to fall behind if they don’t start at 2-years old. You want your kids to enjoy it and not have it be a chore to go to the rink.

Andy Ness is the head skating and skill coach for the Minnesota Wild. He has also been an assistant skating instructor for the New Jersey Devils, the University of Minnesota men’s and women’s hockey teams and the U.S. Women’s Olympic Hockey Team.

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Hockey athleticism

by JACK BLATHERWICK, Let’s Play Hockey Columnist With no apologies to the on-again, off-again basketball superstars of today, I’d argue that Michael Jordan was the best player of all time. But what do I know about round-ball?

His most ardent fans say MJ’s combination of athleticism and skill will never be matched. I write because of the importance of the word “combination.” Jordan was not the best shooter of all-time, although he could really shoot. He wasn’t the best ball-handler, playmaker or defensive player if each of these skills is measured against the very best in history at that one skill. He didn’t have the highest vertical jump or fastest sprint of all-time, nor was his (laboratory) endurance the greatest.

However, Jordan was the best combination of all these attributes. If we asked a similar question about current hockey players, Sidney Crosby might be the best combination, but not necessarily the very best at any one piece of the puzzle.

So when will off-ice training emphasize the combination, rather than isolating each piece in separate workouts? When will we integrate sprint speed, explosive jumping, skating fundamentals and strength in the same off-ice session?

Why do we isolate instead of integrating? In physiology textbooks, aerobic endurance is taught separately from anaerobic qualities like speed or speed-endurance because: 1) the metabolic enzymes are different, 2) there are different muscle cells (fibers) activated and 3) the nerves recruit muscles in different patterns.

In laboratory tests, scientists isolate the various pieces in order to learn more about each part of the athlete’s makeup (heart, lungs, muscles, nerves, hormones, metabolism, etc.). So has 60 years of laboratory testing this way improved our approach to developing better hockey players from the first day they put on skates?

The short answer is “no.” In fact, it made us look at athletes as the sum of the various pieces, when we should have been learning more about developing synergy among these pieces.

Synergy is what made Michael Jordan’s game performance so much greater than the sum of his individual parts.

Sixty-five years ago, Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes. To break this barrier, he became a brilliant student of physiology. His training was unique, and he concluded that if he was successful, it would depend on synergy. He expressed it this way: “The human body is centuries in advance of the physiologist, and can perform an integration of heart, lungs and muscles which is too complex for the scientist to analyze.”

His advice is sound today. Every young athlete should resist the dogmatic advice to ISOLATE each piece of one’s athletic makeup. Instead, learn how to INTEGRATE the pieces more often. Participate in dynamic sports like tennis, basketball, soccer, lacrosse or football. Then, incorporate explosive movement of your body into every workout. I’m not suggesting we find more ways to move the barbell explosively – I mean move your body. www.stateofhockey.com

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motivation lights up – “I shot 500 pucks and my shot is better. What if I shoot 2,000? I can’t even imagine how much better I’ll get.”

As coaches, parents and trainers, what is more motivating than working to help youth athletes develop grit, perseverance and mental toughness? Tests that measure grit are some of the best predictors for future success, more so than natural ability. Unlike solely skill-focused training, the development of hard work and perseverance is proven to provide our kids a better shot at successfully completing whatever task they ultimately endeavor to take on. That fact alone is reason enough to double-down on our efforts to teach athletes hard work.

Josh Levine is the Assistant Coach of the Bloomington Jefferson Girls Varsity Hockey team and owner of The Fortis Academy. Fortis works with youth associations to implement skill development programs with all teams, from Mites to Bantams. The program includes parent education seminars, coaching clinics and Fortis skill-based practices. If you’re interested in learning more, shoot Josh an email at joshletsplayhockey@gmail.com. Follow Fortis on Facebook and Instagram: facebook.com/thefortisacademy and instagram.com/thefortisacademy.

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What the best stickhandlers do There are three critical aspects of stickhandling for young players to learn

by KIM MCCULLOUGH, Let’s Play Hockey Columnist Your ability to stickhandle effectively is a key skill that can really make you stand out in girls’ hockey. It is important to note that stickhandling isn’t all about having the fanciest moves on the ice. It’s about being able to beat people 1-on-1 while maintaining control of the puck. It’s about maximizing the distance between the player defending you and the puck so that you can beat them with speed and strength.

I tell the players I coach that puck protection is the most important stickhandling skill. The ability to put your body between the defender and the puck is how to control the puck most effectively. This doesn’t require fancy “dangles” – it requires the ability to control your body in space and to know how to protect the puck from the defender using your body and stick.

This is especially critical in the female game since there is no full body checking. In the men’s game, if a player is handling the puck, they can be hit. This is not the case in the female game. Therefore, players can feel a little bit “safer” carrying the puck – not having to worry about being run over with a bone-crushing check.

There is certainly nothing wrong with having great hands and being able to stickhandle with fancy moves. But the reality is that those moves have their time and place in 2020

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the game – and that’s not every time you touch the puck.

Players with great hands tend to want to showcase that ability every single time they touch the puck and quite often that strength actually becomes a shortcoming of their game.

Players must learn when it is appropriate to try a fancy move or whether it’s better to just lean into the defender with your shoulder and try to beat them with speed and strength. The vast majority of times in girls’ hockey, the second option is your better one. Think of it in the same way that a basketball player will protect the ball from a defender. In basketball, you don’t just dribble the ball in front of you and leave it vulnerable to the hands of the defender. You put your body in between the defender and the ball so as to protect it. This is a concept and skill that hockey players must embrace so that NEW they can protect the puck efIMPR AND fectively and maintain puck OV possession.

DRIL ED LS! Three critical aspects of stickhandling for young players to learn are: head up, soft hands, feet moving.

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STICKHANDLING continued from page 8 moves in the world, but if you can only execute them with your head down, you aren’t going to be very effective on the ice. This goes back to the idea of making the best decision possible with the puck. In hockey, you constantly need to be aware of what’s going on around you. When you keep your head down, you are only aware of the puck. With your head up, you can decide whether making your fancy move is most appropriate, or whether you should simply protect the puck, make a pass or shoot the puck. It is absolutely critical that players become comfortable with handling the puck with their head up from a very early age.

The concept of having soft hands is another one that players must embrace from a very early age. Far too many young female hockey players stickhandle like they are chopping wood. When it comes to having soft hands, it is absolutely essential that players get their hands out in front of them and away from their body. For some strange reason I haven’t quite figured out just yet, girls’ hockey players tend to stickhandle with their top hand glued to or next to their hip. This makes it very difficult to have soft hands as your top wrist has no room to roll back and forth. It also makes it nearly impossible to handle the puck on either side of your body – it limits your range of motion around your body. Players must get their hands out in front of them and allow the top hand to roll side-to-side and allow the bottom hand to slide up and down the stick as needed. Your hands cannot be surgically glued to your stick. They must move

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and adjust to the puck in order to stickhandle effectively.

Keeping your feet moving while stickhandling is another skill that players tend to struggle with and must be embraced in order to progress on to higher levels of women’s hockey. For some reason, when girls get the puck on their stick, they tend to stop their feet moving. It sometimes seems that handling the puck quickly and moving your feet quickly are mutually exclusive. Once players have become comfortable handling the puck at slower, more controlled speeds, they must get their feet and hands moving at higher speeds. My college coach used the analogy of the puck being an energy pill. When you receive the puck, it should make you move faster, not slow you down. Players must practice handling the puck with their head up, hands away from their body and at high speeds in order to truly have effective stickhandling skills.

For a specific eight-week plan to take your stickhandling and shooting to the next level, visit http://totalfemalehockey.com/products/elite_shooting_stickhandling.

Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS, is an expert in the development of aspiring female hockey players. She is a former NCAA Division I captain at Dartmouth and played in the National Women’s Hockey League for six years. She is currently the Director and Founder of Total Female Hockey and coaches the Toronto-Leaside Junior Wildcats in the PWHL.

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The most affordable summer training checklist

by JOSH LEVINE, Let’s Play Hockey Columnist A good general rule is that the most affordable training tends to be the toughest and have the most advantages. Like any rule, there are exceptions, and certain training like skating technique work can be very beneficial for youth hockey players and requires a professional. Other skills can and do benefit from a skills’ coach, but ultimately repetition must come from the intrinsically-motivated player. Below is a checklist of simple, affordable and incredibly effective training techniques.

Are you using them?

1. Stickhandle in the garage. It’s too easy. Get a good stickhandling ball, make creative obstacles out of anything you can find and play away. Buy a PVC pipe, roughly 1.25 inches in diameter, cut it so it’s about 6 inches in length, place it on the stick, and hold with your bottom hand. This forces you to use the top hand and learn the proper technique. Make a goal for the summer, place a piece of paper in the garage and mark off how many times you complete a 15-minute stickhandling circuit. Do it enough times and you will have some amazing hands.

2. Shoot pucks. Get together with some buddies, order a pizza and shoot for a few hours. I generally like to start by shooting for accuracy – aim for the corners. You can also have a buddy call out a number 1 through 4, with each number representing a different area on the net. Make sure to get both backhand and forehand shots in. You should also just work on getting your shot harder. Don’t worry about accuracy when practicing to improve shot speed. You can shoot into the middle of the net. But focus on proper form and proper synergy between the legs, core and upper body.

3. Run sprints. Find a hill, track or soccer field. Pace out anywhere between 20 and 60 meters. Get some buddies that are about as fast as you and race each other like it is the Olympic qualifying round every single time. Make sure to take plenty of rest. During each sprint, you must hit top speed. You’ll never get faster going 99 percent.

4. Calisthenics. Getting knocked off the puck too often?

Well, wall-sits, front planks, lunges, push-ups, pull-ups and many other exercises can be done at home. Of course, they don’t shine like the barbells in the weight room, but they do provide great athletic benefits.

5. Use development ice. Many rinks have development ice in the morning for very low cost. It’s practically free ice. Ask your coach what you need to work on and then go work on it.

Go online and find great edgework drills. Perform figure-eights on both the inside and outside edges. Do it going backwards, too. Shoot pucks and work on puck control. Reserve your private lessons as “teaching sessions” where the coach is providing feedback and instruction throughout. You can knock out repetitions on the skills you’re taught on your own.

6. Have a pair of rollerblades? Use them when the weather allows. Put on your Rollerblades, find a smooth and safe area, and work on your stride. No need to do all-out sprints. It’s www.stateofhockey.com

tough with Rollerblades to do quick explosive starts. Instead, do 20- to 30-second skates with decent rest between each set.

Focus on full stride recovery and full leg extension. Work on getting into the perfect hockey squat by exaggerating your knee bend.

7. Do agility drills. Use a colored tape to create an agility ladder on the ground in the garage or driveway. Grab some cones and create movements you do on the ice at a soccer field or in your backyard. Sprint left, cut backward, stop, start, accelerate, decelerate, etc. Be creative, take plenty of rest and make sure to do every drill at 100 percent of your physical potential.

Josh Levine is the Assistant Coach of the Bloomington Jefferson Girls Varsity Hockey team and owner of The Fortis Academy. Fortis works with youth associations to implement skill development programs with all teams, from Mites to Bantams. The program includes parent education seminars, coaching clinics and Fortis skill-based practices. If you’re interested in learning more, shoot Josh an email at joshletsplayhockey@ gmail.com. Follow Fortis on Facebook and Instagram: facebook.com/thefortisacademy and instagram.com/thefortisacademy.

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What should dryland training accomplish?

by JACK BLATHERWICK, Let’s Play Hockey Columnist It would be logical to assume that after a century of hockey, the coaches and players would have a workable definition of hockey endurance – a definition that shapes their conditioning plans on-ice and off. That assumption is wrong.

We still have no clue why we do what we do in the name of ‘conditioning,’ because scientists have distracted us with academic language.

Let’s pause for a moment and ask coaches a practical question – not to be disguised by all the laboratory Latin words: aerobic, anaerobic, cardiovascular, etc. The real question that should have been asked of coaches – but coaches were never asked: What qualities would you like your players to maintain for every shift of an entire game? The answer to that question would, of course, be called ‘Hockey Endurance.’

Instead we asked physiologists, and they tried to characterize hockey with those Latin names, because they needed to separate the collective athlete into his/her pieces in their labs and textbooks in order to teach the details separately.

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That was good solid physiology for those of us who cared, but it didn’t do a thing for the coaches’ question: what are we trying to accomplish by our conditioning programs?

So, I’ve asked coaches this question in seminars for 40 years, and the non-Latin answer is always: we want to maintain speed, agility, explosive strength, gritty competitiveness, skill, and rink sense.

Notice the absence of the word ‘slowness’ in that list.

Yet almost every conditioning program for every sport involves repetitions of slowness – enough repetitions that the Central Nervous System (CNS) is bound to repeat the slow reps at just the wrong time in a game.

Worse yet, with young players who should be learning speed and quality skating skill, the slow, inefficient repetitions in poorly designed conditioning drills will imprint semi-permanent bad skating habits into the CNS. Our best intentions mean nothing to the CNS. It’s all about the repetitions. Whatever a young athlete repeats most often will define that athlete’s future. If I were to say more than that, this lesson would be lost in needless rhetoric, so I’ll keep it short in hopes that everyone will read the preceding sentence a few more times.

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ANDY NESS & DIANE NESS Minnesota Wild Skating Coaches

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Refining technique after the season

by ANDY NESS, Let’s Play Hockey Columnist

At the end of a long season, you may notice that most players’ skating technique begins to suffer. Minor things like a skater’s stride getting choppy or a skater not bending his/her knees are most evident. While most teams work on power play, penalty kill, breakouts and forechecks during the season, there leaves little room for skating and skill development.

As spring and summer are upon us, it is time once again to take a step back and revisit technique. Form skating and refining technique are essential. Being able to focus on a stride slowly, as well as concentrating on a deep knee bend, are crucial in continuing to progress as a skater. Again, these are spring and summer sessions, the perfect time to sharpen technique.

Last year, I had a number of pros come back after their season (later if they made the playoffs). Some were out with concussions for most of the year, so they really wanted to focus on just skating and skill work. There is no rush – training camp does not begin again until late August, so taking things slow and making sure to do them right is key.

Starting from edges, balance and turns is always a good place to start. This will usually be the focus for a couple of weeks. From there, stride and crossover technique will then become our main areas for improvement. At this point, a skater should feel very comfortable with their knee bend and good command of their edges. Eventually, we will move into more difficult maneuvers such as transitions, mohawks and escapes. Not until we have a solid foundation will we move on to fullspeed skating. As the summer progresses, we can then move into quick starts and overspeed.

The key is to get these skaters feeling confident in everything we do before we increase the speed.

The key to all of this is starting with a solid foundation. We always use the analogy

TECHNIQUE continued on page 22

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Let’s Play Hockey

Summer Hockey Guide 2020 17

Train with the best at Shattuck-St. Mary’s In order to be the best, one has to train with the best, and they will be hard-pressed to find a better training program than what is offered at Shattuck St. Mary’s.

Minnesota’s lone Tier 1 program has produced some of the NHL’s best players by developing them throughout their adolescent years. The proof is in the long list of players who have come through the Shattuck program to go onto stellar professional careers. Currently there are over 25 S-SM alumni in the NHL, including Sidney Crosby, Nathan McKinnon, Jonathan Toews, Zach Parise, and many more. This

summer, Shattuck will once again run their hockey camps in Faribault, Minn., beginning in July. They will host a skill development camp for birth years 2008-2010, as well as a tournament camp for birth years 2004-2007. This is a boarding camp where players stay overnight, including meals. Each camp consists of three hours of on-ice training per day, one hour of individual skill development, one hour of team concepts, and either an evening game, or small area games. Classroom/ video sessions are also offered daily, as well as team workouts.

Camp Staff includes current

SSM coaches and alumni, as well as several current players and guest coaches.

Shattuck provides campers the unique opportunity to train at one of the most prestigious hockey institutions in the world, a program that continues to churn out elite hockey players that go on to do great things both on and off the ice.

To learn more about Shattuck St. Mary’s hockey Camp please visit https://www.s-sm.org/summer-programs-camps/hockey-camp/ or contact Sumer Hockey Director, Jason Horstman at 507-333-1691 or Jason.horstman@s-sm.org.

2020 SUMMER HOCKEY

Girls Hockey Camp June 21 -27 birTh yearS 2002 - 2009

CAMPS

boarDing: $1,099 Day: $949 goalie: $699

Boys Hockey Camps SeSSion 1: July 5 - 11 SeSSion 2: July 12 - 18 SeSSion 3: July 19 - 25 SeSSion 4: July 26 - Aug. 1

boarDing: $1199 Day: $975 goalie: $699

TournamenT Camp: birTh yearS 2005 - 2007 Skill DevelopmenT Camp: birTh yearS 2008 - 2009 * 2010 aCCepTeD by requeST

queSTionS? ConTaCT: Jason Horstman ’07, Camp Director Phone: (507) 333-1691 Email: jason.horstman@s-sm.org

18 Summer Hockey Guide 2020

Mary Hart, Registration Phone: (507) 333-1693 Email: mary.hart@s-sm.org

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Ranking of off-season activities for goalies

by JEFF HALL, Goalcrease Coaching Director Each spring, we get a lot of questions from parents and goalies about what sort of off-season training and activities are best. The options are truly endless and tough decisions have to be made, because one can’t do them all. While the best off-season plan is different for everyone, we are offering some guidelines that should help the general goalie population to prioritize their time and energy in a way that leads to the most improvement.

If your goal is to improve as much as possible for next season, to be faster, stronger, more skilled, more confident in the net than ever before, then this list should help. From best to worst, or most important to least important, here are the Goalcrease off-season activity rankings.

1. Other Sports/Activities. It doesn’t really matter what it is. But here is the simple test so you know it will make you better at goaltending; it challenges you physically and mentally. It’s great if you’re a shortstop on the baseball team, or a serious lacrosse player, but it doesn’t

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have to be organized sports. It simply has to be challenging. Montreal Canadiens goalie, Charlie Lindgren, lists Spikeball with his friends as a key part of his training.

Any healthy kind of dryland training would fall into this category as well. If you’re getting a workout while not wearing goalie pads, it’s to your benefit as a goalie. This gets our top ranking because it’s the healthiest thing. Everything else on our list could lead to mental burnout and overuse injuries over time. This actually prevents that from happening.

2. Goalie specific training. Or in other words, skill development. Get on the ice with a good goalie coach and practice some skills. The emphasis should be on strong and efficient crease movements.

3. Playing in Competitive Hockey Games. Games are a crucial element in goalie development. While USA Hockey and others have studied and documented the superiority of practice over games for the development of skaters, the same is simply not true for goalies. Goalies need game experience to learn how to read plays, deal with adversity, and teach themselves things that coaches can’t. Now, a goalie who played a lot of games for a long season may want few, if any, off-season games.

Games are a higher priority for a goalie that served as a backup, played a short season (such as high school JV), or missed a lot of games due to injury.

4-9. Pretty much anything you can think of other than video games.

10. And the lowest ranking goes to: Team Practices/ Camps/Clinics for skaters. This is where most bad habits develop. Goalies see enough rubber in practice during the season. Avoid too much of this in the off-season. If they offer “free for goalies” there’s probably a reason for it.

Let’s Play Hockey

Summer Hockey Guide 2020 19

FCA Hockey’s Advanced Player Camp and Elite Goalie Camp These camps are designed to help elite players who are preparing for high school, junior and college hockey.

June 12 – June 15 at the Northstar Sports Complex, Alexandria, MN (Check in at 3:30pm on the 11th)

2020 FCA Hockey Select Camps, Showcases and Teams Northstar Knights ID Camp

April 17-19 and April 24-26 • 04-05 Birth Years • Northstar Sports Complex

Pre-Draft Showcase

May 8-10 • 01-03 Birth Years • Boston, MA

Team FCA

May 22-25 • 00-04 Birth Years • Northstar Sports Complex• Overnight

Junior Team FCA

May 22-25 • 05-06 Birth Years • Northstar Sports Complex • Overnight

Chowder Cup

July 20-26 • 00-04 Birth Years • Boston MA

2020 FCA Hockey Skills Camps

Boys Skills Camp • June 8-11

03-11 Birth Years, Day and Overnight Campers

Girls Skills Camp • June 17-19

03-11 Birth Years, Day and Overnight Campers All Alexandria, MN camps will be hosted at the Northstar Sports Complex.

For all the information or to apply for a spot, visit http://fcahockey.org/camps-and-clinics Spots are limited for all camps and you must apply and be accepted prior to registration.

20 Summer Hockey Guide 2020

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Summer Hockey Guide 2020 21

Continuing to develop the fundamentals

by ANDY NESS, Let’s Play Hockey Columnist As I sat and watched Tom Brady pick apart the Los Angeles Chargers last year, I found it interesting what the announcers had to say. They started by saying he arrived at the stadium almost five hours before kickoff to prepare, followed by the fact that he had his throwing coach out the week before as a “tune-up” on his throwing mechanics.

What, Tom Brady needs a “throwing coach?” He’s already won five Super Bowls. Why would he continue to train on the basics?

If you are able to do some research, you will notice how athletes at the professional level continue to train fundamentals. Hopefully, this article gives you some thoughts into how you, your son or daughter can continue to train to reach your highest potential.

If you have ever had the opportunity to watch professional athletes practice or train, you will notice a lot of the time is just spent on fundamentals. You can see golfers hitting ball after ball on the driving range, each with a purpose.

You can see basketball players taking countless shots from different spots on the floor and maybe a shortstop fielding ground ball after ground ball. You may come to notice that most of these drills aren’t earth shattering. They’re not shock and awe drills. They’re not working on 50 different things within one drill. They are simply repeating good fundamentals over and over and over.

In hockey, especially at the younger level, for some reason we think the more difficult or crazy the drill has to be the better. It doesn’t do much good for me to jump over cones and do a flip in the air if I struggle to catch a backhand pass.

Yes, it may not look as “cool” or “challenging,” but every PeeWee is not beyond the fundamentals. If doing 11 different hitting drills off a tee is good enough for Albert Pujols, then it’s good enough for everyone.

When we look at skating specifically, that is essentially what we are trying to do. We are either trying to build and develop good fundamentals or “fine-tune” fundamentals. In today’s day and age, we want everything right now. Being a good skater (or being good at anything) takes time. It takes time to develop good habits. It takes time to get a skater lower, get stronger on your edges, become more agile and efficient. There are no short-cuts.

When you see an older skater that is a good skater, he or she has already built that strong foundation of fundamentals.

When working with older skaters, it is always easier to teach them more difficult skills if they have a solid foundation.

Once a skater has a solid foundation, it is equally important to continue to grow and build off what a skater already possesses. It’s no different than any person in great shape. It’s 22 Summer Hockey Guide 2020

the continual execution of good habits (diet and exercise) that will keep you in great shape.

That is the one thing when I hear parents say, “they’re already good skaters, they’re already good shooters, they don’t need to work on that.” To continue to grow and improve, you always need to work. I encourage you to get to a high level practice and watch if you can. It is why NHL players come out before and after practice to work on their skills. One guy may take a set of one-timers, and then move a few feet over and take another set. Repeat, repeat, repeat. We all love to watch the games, but practice is where we see what is being taught and what skills are being worked on.

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TECHNIQUE continued from page 16

MARCH 6-7, 2020 St. Paul RiverCentre

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of building a house. The first and most important step is building a solid foundation. Once a house has a solid foundation, you can begin to build on top of it. The ironic part is that no one wants to go see a concrete slab into the ground. They want to see fancy lighting and upgraded appliances. Much like skating, we get kids that want to learn how to do a spin-o-rama before they can hold an outside edge. The only way we can work on advanced skills with a skater is if there is something there to work with. Once we have a skater with a strong base, solid knee bend and strong edges, everything becomes much easier.

Until then, we would basically be spinning our tires in the sand.

Spend some time building that foundation. When you look at any sport, it always comes down to executing the fundamentals. Hockey is no different.

These skills will take some time to develop. Don’t rush through them, practice them regularly, especially when you get some time in the off-season.

Summer Hockey Guide 2020 23

Learn from & train with Olympic Gold Medal Champions!

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Both camps held JUNE 21-27, 2020 Deerwood, Minnesota

www.heartlandhockey.com 24 Summer Hockey Guide 2020

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Let’s Play Hockey

Summer Hockey Guide 2020 25