Final Post for the summer!

So the summer is over and all the boys have gone home. It was a great summer with a lot of positives and growth on the part of the young gentlemen who I had the privilege to work with. Hopefully the guys gained some valuable insight towards life and hockey.

They endured 7 long weeks of relentless training and pushing from yours-truly. I can imagine it’s not an easy task to be held to the standard I tried to hold them to all summer but they made it through and I can honestly say that they all excelled and grew both as players and people.

There were a lot of smiles and laughs but mostly there was a ton of sweat, some toilet cleaning, a little bit of sarcasm, and a lot of hard prodding with the stick. I tried to teach them as much about hockey and life that I could in seven short weeks. We often discussed a measuring stick they were trying to achieve – a measuring stick of excellence and not just mediocrity. I asked them only to be as perfect as they could be. They have such lofty goals and have put in a lot of honest work towards achieving their heart’s desire.

This work included: trying to keep their rooms clean (which they failed miserably at), working hard at their ice and dry-land sessions, and to make me proud of them as people around the camp. They succeeded on so many levels and all the management and elder staff at Teen Ranch commented as to the high quality of their characters. I guess this makes me happiest.

I’d now like to offer an official thank you to the guys for behaving so well, for not smashing my Buick Rendezvous (nick-named the “Mazerati” which I entrusted them with for the summer), for working so hard, and being a credit to their parents is the best compliment I can give. To say they’re from good stock must be an understatement because they definitely represented their family names and their home country very well.

So: Jade, Rocko, Bully, Nortz, Soarz, Wardy, Hadgi, Callum, Will, and Stevie – thanks for making it a great summer in 2010 and it would be my pleasure to host you again next summer!

Hill Sprints

As promised!

Charity NHL game and camp finito!!!

Hi everybody Callum Bowley and Tom Norton here, this will be our final post for the camp blog.

On Wednesday night a friend of Corey's managed to get a hold of some tickets in Collingwood which featured NHL stars such as, Kris Draper (Detroit Red Wings), Chris Neil (Ottawa Senators), Steve Ott (Dallas Stars), Trevor Daley (Dallas Stars), Mike Komisarek (Toronto Maple Leafs), Mike Weber (Buffalo Sabres), Kevin Klein (Nashvile Predators), Retired NHL stars such as Aaron Downey and Brad May, They played against a select team from around the area Collingwood of past and present players, the score ended up 5-4 to the House 9 team which was the NHL players but the collingwood team won the penalty shoot out with some brilliant goal tending from the Collingwood goalie. It was quite an adventure getting to the arena, we had a native Canadian friend (Ben Clarke) who we thought would know the roads and the directions to the arena, but boy was we wrong we ended up driving past our turning and going 54 Km in the wrong direction, we stopped and asked an old lady for direction which we let our native Canadian handle again which took 15 minutes and all he got out of her was "You wont get there going in this direction" but in the end we found someone who knew the way and we got there safely for the start of the game.

This morning was our final session on the ice and it was a up tempo session with flow drills and lots off battling games, we had a little bag skate at the end having to push the nets from one end of the rink to the other, then we played Stick and Puck Boy and for the 4th time running Will "sharpshooter" Weldon to the prize hahaha. Then after the session we did our last off ice session.

We would just like to say thank you to teen ranch for allowing us to come and use the great facility's and stay at the ranch, would also like to thank Neil Black for the flight tickets and Corey for giving us the opportunity again and again to our families who this couldn't of been done without with. Thank You

Bi Bi xxx Nortz and Callum

Stair Jumps for explosive Power!

Here's 3 examples of the stair jump routine we do weekly. There are around 20-25 different exercises we do on the stairs (it takes approx. 25 mins to complete). Then we get to walk over to the hill to do the sprints which I will upload tomorrow...

Powerskating!

Here's a video of the boys demonstrating some edge control drills for the campers and having a little fun whilst doing it...

Lacho and Wardy on the Swiss Balls

This is pretty impressive...

Jade's ready...

Well folks. Jade means business! This is a focused, powerful athlete. I know - I'm shocked I'm saying it too but he's been a work-out machine for 4 weeks now...

C