Lets Gel

Its seems its about time for a team of proffesional players to gel together and own the ice like they seemed to lastnight. With top line players such as Nash, Niedermyer and Iginla again chipping in team Canada seems prepared to take on the powerhouse Russians. Their offense will test both our goalies and our defensive zone responsibility but with so much talent on our blueline and the ability for our forwards to capitalize on thier chance I think Ovie, Semin and Fedorov may have their hands full.

While keeping with the them of international hockey competititon, I ahve finally confirmed my flights to join the Scottish National teams as their coach while they compete in Hull, England this May. This is truly going to be a amazing experience to workw ith players who are very talented and have the drive to win like I havent seen in many North American born players. After working with the team overseas since last July it is finally almost time to see our hard work put to the test in game situations.

GO Canada/Scotland GO

Olympics and Team Canada Hockey

Team USA  may have won the Olympics pick up hockey game a few nights back but justice was served yesterday as we took back the ice rink winning the ICE DANCING GOLD last night pulling the rug right out from under the American’s and Russian’s.

With Ice Dancing now firmly taking over as Canada’s national sport I can only hope that Canada’s men’s rec hockey team can follow in their foot steps and upset Germany tonight.

In all seriousness, for Canada to be the first north american team to ever win the ice dancing competition is a huge accomplishment and congratulations to Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir on there Gold Medal. Lets hope the bitter taste of a loss 2 nights ago is forgot through the other on ice victories of ice dancing and the Canadian enthusiasm makes a full recovery on into the medal rounds for the mens hockey team.

A bit of an play on a Charles Swindoll quote:

The longer we live, the more we should realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. Attitude is what determines your personal successes and failures for all aspects of your life not only sport. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home and especially a TEAM. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have and the one thing we can control, and that is our attitude …growing as a person, player and a teammate means understanding that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our Attitudes.”

Lets hope team Canada’s pride is driven by a positive attitiude tonight!!!

Cooling Off Period

After a restless night of sleep and the cold shivers that come with a heart breaking loss like team Canada had lastnight, my mind is a bit clearer. I realize that a Herb Brooks philosophy was true in 1980 and still in 2010. “Im not looking for the best players, I am looking for the right ones”. Not to put myself at Sidney Crosby or Rick Nash’s level but in corrolation to their team dynamic my first year of proffessional hockey had me in a similar situation. It was a team of perennial all stars that just by looking at our roster you would think you didnt have a chance, however the cliche that defined our year was that there was ”too many cooks in the kitchen” as come April the team had a dismal 22 wins in a 76 game season. (many players including myself requested and recieved trade pre playoffs to escape the less that desirable dressing room dynamics)

With so much talents and players who traditionally play 20-25 minutes per night in the NHL and now move to a 3rd line role playing 8 minutes a night things can be a tough to over come especially with so may players who are born leaders, captains and all stars. A back to basics approach of chipping the puck out chipping the puck in and grinding it out the old Canadian way will have to be the secret to our success or there may end up being MIRACLE part #2 by the end of these Olympics.

USA 5 Canada 3

What a disappointment that was. As a former player myself who played professionally I am always hesitant to question an elite player’s mind, but what could have Marty Broduer have been thinking on the play which led to the American’s second goal when he cleared the puck baseball-style? Wow! I wish they could have shown a clip of Yzerman or Babcock’s faces as that play unfolded.

I say no more right now, except it sure looks like a little mojo is missing with Team Canada.

A new site! A new blog!

If you are reading this you have no doubt noticed Next Generation HKY has a new web site and a new blog. We’re pretty excited about this here as both tools will now allows to feature all the hockey camps we stage in Manitoba and Ottawa. And of course, we’ll be posting our hockey thoughts and links to the blog.