Youth embrace ice age
IF YOUR DREAM as a young athlete is to play in the National Hockey League someday, it could happen. But you’re going to have to work a little harder if you live in Spokane. That’s the consensus of area coaches and other teachers of the game. Lately, more and more parents in the area are heeding their advice and doing just that: giving their kids an opportunity to chase a dream on ice. Nobody said it was going to be easy. There are certain factors which limit the ability of players from the Spokane area to get on to the elite developmental track, not the least of which is geography.
The Pacific Northwest is relatively isolated from the hockey hotbeds of the Midwest and the East. Even the burgeoning West Coast hockey scene revolves more around the population centers of California and, to some degree, the Puget Sound.
Yet, just to the north of Spokane, British Columbia produces some of the most talented hockey players in the pros. The Vancouver area, in particular, is host to a variety of year-round training camps and competitive leagues. But families from Spokane who want to be part of that scene are looking at a big commitment, in terms of both time and money.
A select few are doing it, but the majority of parents aren’t able to do so for a variety of reasons. Most of the development of players comes during the fall-to-spring season, particularly in practices. Yet the off-season has become just as important for players looking for an edge.
That’s where hockey schools come into the fold. It may be summer in the city, but baby it’s cold inside the rink.
Closing the gap
It’s a scorching Friday afternoon in July, as the temperature outside the chilly Planet Ice rink is higher than 90 degrees. Inside, National Hockey League player Cam Severson and a few of his friends are hosting the end-of-week reward for five hard days of work for a group of kids at his summer hockey school.
While current and former Spokane Chiefs, Spokane Braves, and other area junior players play the roles of linesmen, referees and coaches, a pair of Squirt- and Pee Wee-aged teams battle to a 14-14 tie after three regulation periods.
Severson holds up five fingers to the coaches, indicating each must pick five of the younger players on their team to participate in a shootout. The shootout also ends in a tie, but the game is settled two shooters later and the young players mob their goalie in a Stanley Cup-style celebration.
The result of the scrimmage was not the point, Severson reminds the kids in a postgame huddle near the benches. He does so by handing out two game-used sticks and another new one. They are given to the three “hardest workers” of the week – as Severson sends a message what they must do to succeed.
Severson himself knows what it takes. A scrapper with a big heart and little self-professed talent, he came from a town of 500 people in Canada and worked his way up through the junior hockey ranks to the NHL. The former Anaheim Mighty Duck and Nashville Predator now calls Spokane home and is trying to add one more piece to the puzzle in Spokane for the development of top-level youth hockey players.
“My key is offering kids in the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene area a quality camp that players like myself growing up in Canada didn’t always have the opportunity to attend,” said Severson. “As far as bringing in NHL players and junior players, that goes a long way with the kids to see a guy that plays in the NHL.”
So, dotting the ice at his camp recently were players such as current Spokane Chiefs Michael Grabner, Derek Ryan and Sean Zimmerman, who was drafted by the New Jersey Devils last weekend; hard-working former Chiefs such as Joe Cardarelli, Kris Graf and Brandin Cote; and current Medicine Hat Tiger Tommy Maxwell of Spokane.
Maxwell and his colleagues are on the ice to share the knowledge they have picked up through years of junior hockey, much the same as Severson has been accumulating since his younger days.
“I’ve always wanted to run a hockey school,” says Severson, whose camp is in its second year. “I went to them (camps) as a kid for every year and started working at them since I was 16. I always tried to take something from each one, knowing one day I might put one together myself.”
Severson said he was approached by several hockey parents in the Spokane area about starting a camp. His camp now joins the likes of PacWest’s hockey camp, now in its fourth year, and a scaled-down satellite camp from world-renowned Okanagan Hockey Schools out of Penticton, British Columbia.
PacWest has been offering a late-summer camp for the past four years. This year, it added a June camp tailored for the more elite players. PacWest was the brainchild of Spokane’s Gary Redding and Mark Gustafson. Former Spokane Chiefs executive Don Jamieson and former Spokane standout goalie Randy Amatto have since joined the group.
Gustafson grew up around the game in Spokane as the son of a former Spokane Flyer, the team of senior amateur players who put Spokane on the hockey map by winning the Allan Cup. PacWest jumped in to fill the void created by the departure of the Spokane Chiefs camp several years ago.
Jamieson is from Penticton. There are a plethora of camps for young hockey players every year in Canada, many of which are attended by Americans from Spokane.
Penticton is home to one of the largest and most well-known camps, Okanagan Hockey Schools, which has been attended by hundreds of Spokane-area kids over the years. OHS has begun coming to Spokane with a three-day portable version of its camp to help maintain its base in Spokane.
Most hockey camps are based on a traditional format: a combination of on-ice sessions, off-ice (“dryland”) conditioning sessions and classroom instruction. Each camp has a slightly different variation on that theme; some offer more power skating or more classroom lectures. They coordinate their camp dates to give parents options and are careful not to step on each other’s toes.
All of the camp operators say it is best for a young player to have different experiences from different camps. They seem to be hitting the right chords with parents. The Severson and PacWest camps have each been sold out for the past two years.
It should be noted that camps alone will not make a hockey player an elite one. But their popularity is a sign that Spokane parents are ready to help their kids fuel their dreams – and do whatever it takes – as the city works to produce junior players who are on track to the pros or colleges.
From diapers to blades
“Things have changed,” said Gustafson. “Hockey has been growing in popularity since rollerblades, in the ‘80s, and now kids have an opportunity to skate in summer. …
“There were opportunities (in the ‘70s), but there are more now – especially since Junior A in Canada has expanded. … There are a lot more opportunities for college scholarships and there is a trend toward Junior A teams – like Mr. (Tim) Speltz and the Chiefs – looking at local guys in draft.”
But you have to be good, and you have to get noticed. That takes a combination of time plus money from the parents, along with hard work and determination by the player.
Like all competitive-level youth sports, kids find themselves becoming specialized in a particular sport at an earlier age. Most current youth hockey players in Spokane first got on the ice by preschool, then into beginning hockey skills camps by ages 5 and 6, before beginning to play on organized teams by ages 7 or 8. It is not uncommon for children to decide by age 9 or 10 that hockey is their focus.
When one considers that Junior A teams such as the Chiefs of the Western Hockey league draft players as young as 15 years old, a parent who wants to give their child an opportunity at that level needs to concentrate resources from an early age.
As an example, USA Hockey holds festivals for players as young as 14. Participation in those events is limited and expensive, so a prospect must first attend a regional tryout camp (usually Portland or Seattle area), then be fortunate enough to be selected for the national camp (usually in Minnesota, New York or a similar location).
There are also a variety of nationally recognized academies and hockey prep schools which charge tuitions similar to that of a year at a private university.
It’s the most extreme example of the “haves” and “have-nots,” groups who are defined mostly by socioeconomic differences and not purely on hockey potential. Cost is one of the great dividing lines and those differences can also be seen on the local level. There are plenty of private lesson instructors for power skating, basic hockey skills, and advanced coaching for positions such as goalie – if you can afford to use them.
On a competitive level, the options for local kids and their parents are to sign up for either a “rep” (representative) or “house” (in-house) program. A rep team has a longer season, so the cost of ice time is significantly higher than those of house teams – in some cases several hundred per month for one child. On top of that is outfitting a hockey player (which can run anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars) and paying for tournament entry fees and travel.
Even a player on a house team needs gear and will travel for games, which require an out-of-town stay as well as a prepaid association fee due at the beginning of the season. Those fees often run several hundred dollars. A rep player might play in Seattle one week, Cranbrook the next, and then to Wenatchee, Tri-Cities or Boise. Over a season, parents will spend seemingly endless sums of money and put thousands of miles of travel on their vehicles.
Spending money and traveling are not the only commitments. Ken Johnson said area parents have to show that same level of dedication to put their kids on even footing with players from areas which are more saturated with hockey, such as Canada or hockey hotbeds in the United States.
“You’ve got to be proactive – go find the opportunities, because they’re not going to be calling you,” said Johnson, whose son, Tyler, was drafted by the Spokane Chiefs. “I think that’s a given. Everybody can understand that.
“You have to start saying stuff that coaches don’t want to hear, like, ‘Well, my kid’s pretty good.’ You have to promote your kids. When you live in Spokane and say, OK, now I want to try and get my kid on one of the elite teams in Vancouver, you’ve got to tell them, ‘My kid’s pretty good, can I get a tryout?’ You’ve got to sell your kid and coaches don’t really like hearing that because they hear it all the time. You’re another crazy parent that thinks your kid is the best thing that’s come along since Gretzky.”
But, once a player gets their foot in the door, it usually stays open and the benefits are reaped.
“The caliber of play (in Vancouver) was better, but only because that’s a big area and they can choose. Their caliber of players is no different from Spokane. They just have more players,” said Johnson.
The payoff
The years of hard work by Tyler Johnson and the support of his family have allowed him to have a shot at realizing his dreams of playing hockey at the highest level.
“Everything’s there (regarding talent),” said Spokane Braves coach Mike Bay of Johnson. “He’s just gotta grow.”
That’s much the same thing that was said about Spokane’s Ryan before he established himself as one of the WHL’s most prolific rookies last season. A player who has the physical attributes and has played in the WHL is Maxwell, who said he had to overcome a lot as a U.S. kid.
“The barriers are there, but you just have to see right past them,” he said. “Definitely, growing up in Canada is a huge advantage. They play hockey up there all the time. That’s their life. That’s what they do. They come home from school in the wintertime and go out on the pond and play for three hours.
“I never really had that. I mean, you can become a hockey player with the right drive and determination – no matter where you’re from.”
As an outsider, OHS’ Oakes sees several challenges that Spokane kids face once their goals are on an elite level.
“What it comes down to is coaching, ice time, and competition,” said Oakes. “You guys have the ice time, with the two rinks, and the coaching is developing. What is unfortunate is the (lack of) competition. They have to drive to Seattle and Portland every weekend – and that’s strenuous on the family. Up here, in the Okanagan, we can play 20-30 AA and AAA midget teams, play 60 games and not miss a day of school.”
Maxwell said he “wasn’t good enough” to play in the spring league, but was spotted by WHL coaches at a showcase tournament in Vancouver. He played Bantam AAA, then with the Junior B Braves, before getting tryout letters from three WHL teams. So, it took a little luck, and a lot of sacrifice by his parents.
“They drove me around every weekend; they spent a lot of money on hotels … they did what every hockey parent does,” said Maxwell. “After that, it’s just a question of the player’s desire and where he wants to go with the game.”