What do you get when you combine over 100 young hockey players with an ice surface, six junior A players and two talented coaches?
A good time on the ice in August.
The Humboldt Broncos Hockey School invited 115 kids onto the ice from August 27-30 at the Elgar Petersen Arena.
Under the direction of Broncos head coach Dean Brockman, assistant coach Luke Strueby, and six of the Humboldt Broncos themselves, these young players got to work on basic hockey skills before the season even starts.
"I thought it went extremely well," Brockman told the Journal on August 31. "We had great help from our players and Luke did a great job organizing it all. The kids were really receptive and seemed to have a lot of fun."
What they were trying to do in the sessions for the players, who ranged from Senior Novice level to first-year Pee Wee, was reinstil the basics of the game.
"We kept them on the ice, because we felt that would be more related to the game," Brockman noted.
"We worked a lot on skating, which is the most important part of the game, and passing, shooting and stickhandling," he noted.
This was the first time in about eight years that the Broncos have operated a hockey school for minor hockey players.
The timing was just right this year, Brockman felt, to bring it back.
The Broncos' fall training camp was set back a weekend - it starts September 7 this year, instead of running over the long weekend - so that meant coaching staff would have some time to devote to a school.
And since the kids don't go back to school until after the long weekend this year, it all just worked out.
"The timing was really good for something like that," Brockman said.
"We know we made some mistakes," he added about the camp as a whole. "Hopefully, next year we can correct those mistakes and try to make it accommodating for everyone."
