North American Hockey Academy

First day on ice!
After a fun night in the dorm and getting acquainted or reacquainted with old friends, the girls headed to the ice for the first day of practice.

The topics for the day were:
Basic position, disassociation, balance, recovering on the proper leg, and recognition and reaction to high and low shots.

 The focus of Tuesday's on ice session was to cover all types of basic movement for the goalies. Under the watchful eye and instruction of camp Head Coach Pat Laferriere, the girls went through a very demanding practice.

 Happy Canada Day!
Wednesday's on ice program covered all types of saves, as well as playing the play from behind the net.

The camp is split into to groups by ages, one under the eye of Coach Olli, the other with Coaches Illya and Francis. Illya who played in the Continentall League in Russia last year had the task of teaching his group how to count in Russian from 1-10; Olli had to teach his roup to count in French: 11, 22, 33, 44... to 99. The consequences for Olli or Illya were 150 up downs, a greuling punishment!! Remarkable, 3 girls were chosen randomly from each group, put through the test by Vincent and Pat, and in the end it was a tie score, so no up-downs!!

 The girls have had a great week so far at camp, one of the stongest groups of female goalies brought together to work with Viinny and his staff. They have covered a lot of skills and concepts that are rarely addressed in camps, and during the course of the week have covered many of the techniques necessary to become a strong goaltender.

Some of the topics covered today were recognizing and properly saving the bad angle shot, the one knee-paddle down when and how to use it, and the beginng of the half butterfly, as pictured below. In this photo counselor Kelly Steadman (Mercyhurst College, and TEAM USA U18 & U22) is working with a rotation of goalies at her station.

The last day of camp is never easy, as there a lot of good byes coming to new friends and old. But, it didn't keep Vinny and his staff from getting both sessions of girls on the ice for a spirited last day. In order to learn the many new movements and techniques covered in the camp, many quality repetitions of the same movements are required. The girls have been resiliant as these repetitions are very tiring, but the strides they've made have been obvious to the staff. We hope they'll continue to practice them throughout the summer and bring them into their game and have success!
The end of the last day of camp brings Vinny's special breakaway contest where the shooters challenge the goalies and get quite the workout, and the goalies do their up-downs when scored, in a wild 15 minute ending!! On the right coach Vinny pays the price for a series of goals on counselor Cassie Seguin (Team Canada U122, Princeton Universisty), who graciously helps him up after sending him flying... he had scored a couple in a row on her!!