After a successful first year, the Fort Frances Lakers AAA minor hockey program has decided to expand to more age groups this year.
On October 22 the Lakers announced that the program would expand to include mixed groups from U9, born in 2016 up to U15 born in 2010 as well as 2012/13-born girls and 2015/16-born girls.
Lakers head coach Tyler Miller said they want to help young hockey players in the area work on their skills.
Miller says that a lot of players who are taking hockey a long way whether it’s to the Junior, Junior A or post-secondary ranks and beyond, are spending the offseason working on skills.
“I talked to a local guy and we just shared our hockey thoughts and he said ‘you know back in the old day it was have a break, go fishing, things like that,’” Miller said. “But today’s game has changed a lot of kids are working on their own skill development and personal understanding of who they are as a player and what they bring to the game and what they need to work on.”
“Last year, I had a conversation with, you know, a fellow from Fort Frances, and he said, ‘if you’re not doing it,’ you’re falling behind. Kind of is how it is today. So I said, Okay, we’re gonna do this. And last year, you know, we did it, and we had success with it.”
The program is not meant to run the whole summer, it’s primarily picking up in the spring when the regular hockey season ends.
“It’s just a spring thing we’re doing, I think our last tournament last year was in June,” Miller said. “And we had all of July off. We joined a tournament at the end of August and started back up on August 15. So the kids really did get a break from hockey but just it’s extended that extra month and a half, you get all of April in there and a little bit of May, and then as soon as it’s fishing time, hockey time’s done, get up to the cabin, enjoy it with the family. Don’t focus on hockey, the soccer schedule’s out by then, kids are playing soccer too, which is great. It just gives us that extra month of development, which truly helps, I find.”
Depending on the age of the player there would be certain skills that might be focussed on during the spring sessions.
“For certain age groups, obviously you’ve got to be able to skate, any time you develop your skating skills, it’s going to help you in the long run when you get to the bigger, better places,” Miller said. “Also understanding working on drills with a lot of repetition right? I’m on my way to run the Lakers practice and today’s a skill day for us. The guys are probably going to shoot 200 pucks today with some of the skills drills we’re going to be doing today.”
Miller says the hope for the AAA program is to show players how to act like a high level player.
“Our philosophy is, ‘be a pro,’” Miller said. “That’s what we want, the kids taking over.Running their age group, just be professional, manners. You know, take what you see at the college level, at team dinners, dressing rooms that take care of everything. But, you know, be a good person first and then be a hockey player, it’s important to us well.”
To that end the Junior Lakers players who played last spring stayed together as a team and have participated in community events like the colour run and the glow run with the Canadian Mental Health Association last fall as well.
From Dec. 21-29 evaluation skates will be held and then the teams will be selected. Miller says as a coach he is looking for compete level in young players.
“I think every coach is different. It depends what age group you have. One thing I focus on for the 2016 male is the skating abilities. They’re still young, they’re still learning lots about the game. It’s all about having fun and just working hard. I think the number one thing we look for is, you know, skating and competing,” Miller said. “We want to look for a kid that can skate well, and the kid that’s going to always go after the puck and be puck hungry. When you get to the later years, yout get to the development side of things, you know, opening up their skill set, their hockey, IQ, give and goes, systems, things like that. But for my age group, I can only speak on that, I’m looking for skating and work ethic is the two biggest things I’m looking for.”
The list of coaches for the season is listed on the Junior Lakers AAA Hockey facebook page as well as the link to register.
Miller says one of the advantages to joining a local program is that parents don’t have to take their kids four hours away or more and only get one practice a month before playing in a tournament with kids they don’t even know that well and pay a lot more to do it.
“We’ve got the ice here, let’s use it,” Miller said. “Let’s develop our players in the surrounding area and make everyone better. We don’t need to be, you know, having three, four hour trips to make a practice once a month and then go down and compete in the tournament and be charged $1,500 to do it. You know, we can get enough practices in, get tournaments in for around the cost of, you know, $700 and under. Other programs are $1,500 $2,000, $2500 and it just becomes a business for people. We’re not in it for the business. We’re in it for the development of our local, local youth.”
