By Stephen Dafoe
Morinville – The Town of Morinville, Sturgeon Hockey Club and the Morinville Jets are partnering this summer to bring a hockey camp to town. The camp will run from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 at the Ray McDonald Sport Centre and promises to get players properly prepared to hit the ice in the fall.
“We’re going to go over all the fundamentals of hockey – skills development, conditioning, respect in sport, and dry-land training,’ said Morinville’s Operations and Program Coordinator Tyler Edworthy. “We’re going to hit on every aspect.”
Edworthy said Lara Thompson of Pure Physique has been brought onboard to provide the age-specific dry-land training. “She’s got a pretty strong regimen for them, depending on their age. It will be age specific,” he said, adding players can benefit from the camp as a pre-season conditioning run, but the emphasis will be on skills development.
The plan is to have two camps running side by side each day, alternating on and off ice. If there are enough registrations, organizers are looking to do a three camp split of 8 to11, 12 to14, and 15 and above. Cost of the program is $150 per player.
Needed program
Edworthy is happy to see the program going forward and happy to see a three-way partnership in making it happen. “It’s something that’s been needed in the town for a long time,” he said. “There’s been interest from minor hockey and the Jets in supporting this. They [Sturgeon Hockey Club] are the ones that are going to be involved in the camp so we got the Jets players to come out to the camp and help with the on-ice stuff.”
The Operations and Program Coordinator said the camp falls in line with the direction Morinville is going with sport – an effort to make Morinville’s players and teams the best they can be. “We want to make sure all our players are developing, all our coaches are developing,” Edworthy said. “We are in the process of starting the Sport Development Committee. We want to log all the sports that are being delivered in town. From there, we want to start working on developing those sports. Coaching development is going to be a huge one. I think that’s where it has to start. We’ve got to make sure the coaches that are providing these sports are actually developing the kids that are getting into these sports. If the coaches aren’t trained, we’ve got to make sure it is available to them.” Edworthy said he already has some coaching clinics in the works for baseball and soccer, and that coach training is mandatory in a lot of cases within the sport’s governing bodies.
For more information on this summer’s hockey camp, contact Tyler Edworthy at 780-939-7834. Those interested in registering can do so online.
