Off Season Strength Training

Now that the hockey season is coming to an end, players need time for their mind and body to recuperate from being on the ice. By doing dryland training and weight training, the youth hockey players can still build up their body and skills without getting burned out on the sport.

The Hockey Share blog put up a good post giving some reasons why this is important.

www.hockeyshare.com/blog/comments-thoughts/allowing-post-season-recovery-time

The American Developmental model wants to build athletes first, and hockey players second.

http://www.admkids.com/

We have developed our summer camps so that players can do the nutrition, weight training and hockey skills that keeps it fun, and builds athletic skills.

www.lagunahockeyacademy.com/camps_clinics

Summer Training

We want to make sure that we do not burn out our Youth Hockey Players over the summer, depending on their age you need to have them not just play hockey leagues year round. We want them to play hockey because they want to, and it is fun for them, not because we push them as adults. The American Developmental Model from USA Hockey address age specific training, and how we should develop athletes first, and then hockey players.

http://www.admkids.com

Here is an amusing post on the subject by Mike Boyle from StrengthCoach.com

http://mboyle1959.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/summer-training-for-nine-year-olds/

5 Areas of Focus to Improve Practice from HockeyShare

Kevin Muller of HockeyShare gave 5 tips to improve practice, here is the article from his blog

http://www.hockeyshare.com/blog/comments-thoughts/5-small-areas-of-focus-to-improve-practice/

NHL and TV

After the great buzz generated for hockey generated by having NHL players in the olympics, two things are certain. First despite the 2 week shutdown, the exposure that hockey and the NHL players got because of the olympics was worth the league shutdown. In a world of stars, getting new people to learn about Ryan Miller is huge. People learn the well known athletes of a sport and then follow the sport, look what Tiger Woods did for golf. So the NHL must send its players to the olympics.

Second after perhaps one of the greatest hockey games in quite a while for the gold medal game, many people who were not hockey fans or casual fans wanted to watch some more hockey games. The NHL needs to fix this by getting a contract with a major network to broadcast games. Versus has been great, but it is not easily available to many homes. Second, the fact that Versus cannot be watched on Directv means that people with the largest satellite TV provider cannot watch hockey on Versus. Someone in the NHL needs to step up and resolve this dispute between Versus and Directv. It would be a shame to lose all this goodwill, and interest in hockey. In a fast paced world, the gold medal game will be forgotten by the general public who move on to something else, and a great opportunity will be lost.

2 on 2 hockey

Great article in USA Hockey magazine by Harry Thompson http://www.usahockey.com/Template_Usahockey.aspx?NAV=TU_02_01_05&id=279990 about the benefits of 2 on 2 hockey for having fun and developing skills. Doing drills all the time can get repetitive or boring, but by playing games in a competitive setting lets you improve your skills and have fun, which is one of the most important things for hockey. How else can you scramble for pucks, go after rebounds, and work on your stick handling and shooting and get significant puck touches. We are having a 2 on 2 Adult skills games at our facility for just this reason.
Check out the link http://www.lagunahockeyacademy/Original6

Protecting Hockey Players from their skates

The Orange County Register has an article by Curtis Zupke about developing a material to protect hockey players. One of our local hockey players Kozo Shimano is working on a material to reduce hockey injuries. There have been a number of freaky accidents involving player's skates. He has a material that is slash resistant, is washable, and can be used to make a players socks. Of course even if it is fully developed, Reebok has an agreement with the NHL to make all socks that the players wear. And most players would probably not want to put on another piece of equipment on, especially one that is heavy like this one is. So we will see how this develops, and hopefully something can be worked out to protect hockey players from their skate blades.

Burke and the Ducks

Well Brian Burke keeps getting the players types he likes in Toronto, by grabbing them or trading with the Ducks. It will be interesting to see if JS Giguere reunited with his goalie coach can reproduce the success he had taking the Ducks to the Stanley Cup. JS just does not seem to have the consistency that made him a premier goalie in the league. Sometimes a change of scenery helps all players involved in a trade, so maybe Blake who had been a bust in Toronto will pick up his game as well. If not the Ducks have their number one goalie in Hiller, and some salary cap relief they will need to resign Bobby Ryan.