Players enjoying Elite development

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

The annual Elite Hockey Development camps are in full swing at the Strathmore Family Centre and players from the peewee level all the way up to junior can be seen skating to prepare for the upcoming season.
“We mixed most of the ages and it’s really effective,” said head instructor Doug Raycroft. “You get a kid like Kyle (Crnkovic), hoping to make bantam triple A, and he’s skating with guys that went to nationals and junior hockey players. He gets to ask them questions and it’s really good for those guys and it’s good for the older kids too to work with those guys.”
The camp focuses on preparing the players for the season by working on skill development and fitness.
For the instructors, it’s working on getting the players out of their comfort zones and working them that much harder so that they are better in many aspects of their games.
“We constantly tell them that we want them to fail on the ice,” said Raycroft. “In the summer we want them to be pushing themselves so that they make mistakes all the time. That’s how we know they’re going to get better, if they go slow enough to be successful all the time then they’re not going to be playing at the level they need to.”
Crnkovic felt that playing with older players has been invaluable for furthering his development as he moves up bantam this season.
“It’s pretty great so far training with older guys,” said Crnkovic. “I think it’ll get me ready for camp, they’re in good shape and I’m just trying to keep up with them.”
Crnkovic is striving to play with the Rocky Mountain Raiders bantam triple-A team out of Okotoks this year.
Local player Ray Warrack had a sole focus of working on his stride in the camp and felt it has improved in each session.
“I’ve been hoping to work on my stride and make it a bit more of a smooth stride and working on my game to play it at a faster pace,” said Warrack, who is eyeing a spot on the Wheatland Braves peewee double-A team.
Elite Hockey Development has spots available in the scoring clinic at the end of August and players can go to www.elitehockeydevelopment.com to register.