Thanks Kai & Tom,

Here's one from the other side of the globe, yesterday afternoon.....no snow at sea level yet, but it's creeping down slowly.


Dman, where are you and what Glacier is that?
Tom

Kai,

Looks like this will be happening soon in Calgary too.. we have been blessed with a great fall so far - no snow to stick and most temps averaging about 10C during the days... sometimes not even below 0 C at night! Forecast is a heavy snowfall warning Monday night! Eek!

Where is that winter shot taken?




Dave,

Echoing Tom's question - where was your picture taken?


PS Tom you should post an avatar with you drinking from your Duff beer. come to think of it, I think everyone posting on this site should have a beer drinking avatar!

Dave,

That is one of the best advice columns ever printed! I have seen it before, and it is so true!

Alsaka, eh? Awesome! I don't do fish, but I am sure I could partake in some local beverages and savour the outdoors, during some coachng conversations!

My dad drove the old Alaska highway (up BC, down through Alberta) in the late 1990's and said it was a great trip. He took 4 weeks - in a camper and tent. He followed the Gold Rush Trail and took some great pictures. My friend Tyler wants to ride up that way on our dual sport motorcycles (KTM 640 for me - BMW 1200 GS for him) up to the Arctic Circle - so it is on my radar. Some day / some way, I want to see Alaska as it looks very beautiful!

I just read Brian Kilrea's book "They call me Killer" last night (couldn't put it down). He was the long-time coach of the Ottawa 67's (32 years or something) and I found a reference to Rollie McLenahan. He was my great-uncle. I double checked the name and googled him and it was indeed my great-uncle... He played a season for Detroit in 1945-46 and had a long career in the AHL and IHL as a player (first-team all star D-Man!) and then coached for a few years. I knew he had been inducted into the New Brunswick HOF as a hockey player and builder, along with all but one of his brothers (the one who was killed in WW2) but I didn't know he played in the NHL and coached in the AHL (among other leagues!) Kind of cool to "find out" this way. I had a good talk with my mom today at lunch and she filled me in. I am amazed I never knew about this before! (Apparently, I met him before he passed away in 1984. Wish I would have asked him some questions then... but I had no idea of his pedigree until after he died.)

My uncle on my dad's side was signed to a professional contract by Detroit in the early 1960's but never broke their lineup. He played senior hockey before getting a law degree. He has his original contracts up on the wall of his house. Some interesting clauses written on 'official letterhead' of the Detroit Red Wings - they would pay half for a new pair of skates, the monthly stipend, playoff bonuses, school fees, etc.

Sometimes when you coach you get letters or emails of appreciation. It is really uplifting to get some positive comments and today I got two emails and I will share one here. It is what coaching is all about.

One was from a girl I recruited to play college and she worked the hockey school and needs a reference. I didn't coach her but went to Europe instead. The other is from a young man who came to our summer camps at the Pond Arena in Delaware. Court Dunn forwarded it to me. Court, Juuso and I did the camps he is talking about and he sent this to Court.

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Tom and Juuso,
Thought you’d both like to read a message I woke up to this morning. I don’t have Juuso’s e-mail with me at school, or I would have passed it on to him as well. I’ll do that tonight when I get home. Pretty good stuff ... This young man gets it! It’s great to have the people with whom we’ve worked, give back ... The full circle!
If you remember names, it’s from J R F.. ... a little dynamo, who was really a good player ... his father was a very good golfer, and made sure J R was, too! Hockey though, was still a love for both of them. They were regular participants at our summer camp.
Court

Coach,

Hey, thanks for the wishes.. I just wanted to thank you for the EHC and all your inspiration along the way.. now that i am an old man i have looked back at my life and realized besides golfing with my dad and pop pop, those long summer days at the pond were some of the best times of my life. the way every kid there was so into the endless games and that enjoyment i saw in myself and every other kid at those camps. This year as a last minute thing i volunteered to coach at Chester County Skating club, they actually gave me a head coaching job something i was not quite sure i was ready for it. I remembered all those times playing games and being out of breath on that foggy summer ice. We have won our last 3 games.. to get to 3-3 and tonight i thought of you and the EHC. We had pictures and after we got together and did a little scrimmage with the little nets. As my assistant and I got involved and made it real competitive. As the trash talking increased and the goals kept flowing in i could really get a sense that every kid was having such a great time. It was like if they could pick one place in the whole world to be it would have been the barn! It was a great feeling to have my players having such a great time and I realized why you set those camps up in the first place.. watching a group of kids get better at hockey together is a special thing.
Thanks, your bud

I finally figured out how to get the high def video that Dean took of the nhl teams practicing into a wmv file. It is at
http://hockeycoachingabcs.com/mediagallery/media.php?f=0&sort=0&s=2010111916214599 I will break the drills down in the next while and post them separately.

Quote by: TomM

I finally figured out how to get the high def video that Dean took of the nhl teams practicing into a wmv file. It is at
http://hockeycoachingabcs.com/mediagallery/media.php?f=0&sort=0&s=2010111916214599 I will break the drills down in the next while and post them separately.

Thanks Tom,

Please excuse any bad language you hear during the video. I tried to keep quiet - except during the one Flames practice where my old friend, Dr. Dave P showed up... I haven't seen him for years... he is now working for the Flames now as a Sport Psychologist.

I used to play early morning hockey (630-730 am) with Dave and U of C staff "back in the day".... we are talking 1984 to early 1990's. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, Tom also suited up with us way back then? Tom - did you use to wear a full, clear Itech face mask back then?)

I once drove from Moose Jaw SK on a day off in 1996 (leaving EARLY am) to play noon hockey in Calgary (7 hours one-way) with Dave and the boys at U of C; ate lunch, then drove back to MJ right afterward. I took a couple of sport psych classes from Dave during my undergrad years and we attended Pizza Hut on several occasions when they had their "all you can eat pizza lunches" - we did some serious damage (Dave is 6'5" and I am a shade over 6' ... combined we probably tipped the Toledo's back then around 500+ lbs!) OBVIOUSLY we followed the 20-30 pieces of pizza EACH with a few JUGS of beer! BURP!

Tom taught Dr. Dave "back in the day" and they recounted the awesome noon hour floor hockey games they had... pretty cool stuff! (Tom and I went out for lunch that day to a restaurant called "Spolombo's" - the owners played in the CFL for the Stampeders and Tom taught one or two of them. They also played floor hockey with Dave too. Small world, eh?

And finally, RIP to Pat Burns, who passed away today from lung cancer. It was announced about an hour ago. Godspeed Pat.

I wish he would have been inducted into the HHOF two weeks ago while he was still alive. Bob McKenzie, from TSN and formerly of The Hockey News, was a good friend of MANSBREEK. Read the story here... kind of humourous and a nice tribute to Pat - when the media reported (falsely) his demise back in September.

MCKENZIE: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT FOR PAT BURNS

http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/bob_mckenzie/?id=334094

Tom,

I could have sworn you wore a full Itech. Maybe my memory is leaving quicker than I thought?

Ask the Kryway fellow is he has a son named Kam. If so, I coached him in Major Bantam (Stamps) years ago... if it is his dad, I am wondering what he is doing now? I believe he played Junior A and received a scholarship. He was one of my favourite kids from that team. Just a great, hardworking and pretty skilled kid.

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Cam is Jim's son, he used to play some Sundays with us when he came home for Christmas from Colorado College. He played some minor pro after college.
Dr. Dave was in my dryland group in 1980 and it was the first hockey dryland ever in Calgary. The only pro was Jim Nill who is now asst. gm of Detroit. We did a lot of things that Lucek Bukac introduced at the internations symposiums that George Kingston had every summer for 9 years at the U of C. I talked with David Poile, who was asst. GM of the Flames at the time about how off ice training could help the Flames. He listened politely and said that someday NHL teams may train in the off season but they weren't ready for it yet. (I think he really thought that I had just landed in a spaceship and had these strange ideas from another planet.)

Of course a couple of years later the NHL started off ice and summer training. I kept an article from the paper about the program.

The trip was slow. There were stretches where the road was great; given it is now officially winter - but lots of black ice, blowing / drifting snow and reduced visibility for the rest. The roads and driving conditions weren't very good. It took an extra hour to get there and an extra about 1.5-2 hours back. Coming back, there were numerous accidents and stoppages on the road - three times we were stopped in 50 kms - due to accidents / rollovers. Most of their teams were away this weekend, so I only spoke to one person regarding their MHA and Jr. B team. It sounds like they have good intentions, but I can say that of most MHA boards... rarely do they get the support or have the energy to follow through on their plans!

Thanks Dean,

T- shirt is a souvenir from our trip to Toronto and Vancouver. We were there last March. I got to see 4 NHL games and HHOF, it was the best vacation ever.

So I'm back in cold north. From +25C to - 20C (this morning went up to -8C by the evening).

Hi Coaches. Don't know much about if all the stuff I am putting on here helps anyone or not. I do the drill a day to help coaches of all levels and hopefully improve the experience the coaches and players have in the game.

It is nice that 4 or 5 coaches converse on this board. I see about 2000 hits a day and am interested in what coaches want, like, don't like and alll of that kind of thing.

Let me know.

OK !!!

Tom,

There are two things I really appreciate about this site: 1) Practice materials and 2) Discussion.

1)Drills/Games/Practices: I agree with Dean....the daily drill is a great resource, and the frequent updates make this site incredibly valuable to me by giving me small doses of new concepts throughout the hockey season. The videos you post are also really helpful as they give a clearer picture of what you describe in your books and posts. Posting both images and video links together is a great combination.

2)Theory/Discussion: I like the direction the discussions have gone recently and I'm amazed at the knowledge and experience of the other contributors....I hope to contribute more with time and experience. This is something I see myself using more during the off season, but I still keep my eyes on it daily right now.

I think it's really important to differentiate these two elements here.....They have a tendency to get lumped together, but serve very different purposes. I know there have been times when you feel like people are just taking from the site and not giving back, and I think this is partly because drills don't generate great discussion on their own. These materials are incredibly valuable though, and I will continue to contribute for them. I hope others will do the same!

Thanks for all the work!
Dave
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Dave, thanks for the feedback. Sometimes coaches really get involved like Pops did for a few months this summer and fall and then disappear and I wonder why.
The whole point of the site has always been to help coaches to make the game enjoyable for the players and enjoy the experience of coaching. I have been in it for a long time and am still learning. Dwight does the technical work and makes it easy for me to post things. I learn how to do things by a lot of trial and error. I would like to know how Kai posted the Erkka presentation so it starts by clicking on the site.
I loved the old bulletin board where you could see the thread name and contributor in a way that you could see the topics easily without going thru everything. For some reason it is considered an out of date way to do discussion boards.
I look forward to your postings.

Tom,

I uploaded the video to Photopucket.com and from there you can add a code to you forum post that opens the video or image file.
By the way Westerlund is back in coaching. He's coaching in Finnish elite league team Jokerit.
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Thanks Kai. I hope the sunshine vacation helped your tan. An agent from Finland told me about Erkka coaching Jokerit. It is about mid season in Europe and a lot of coaches are getting gassed and replaced. Those coaches just don't score enough goals or back check a lot.

Kai,

That is a great label! I bought one here in Calgary a few years ago for the specific purpose of adding it to my beer shrine! I love Monty Python! Brilliant comedy. Two of my favourites involve "The Upper Class Twit of the Year Competition" and a skit where "Mr. Hilter" (not Hitler!) and his Nazi cronies are pouring over maps of England, planning an invasion, while sitting in an English pub / hotel; trying hard to not attract attention to themselves. Hilarious! Also love Faulty Towers series with John Cleese. Ever watch those?

Just watched "Funniest Joke in the World"... as soon as I started, I remembered it. Pretty bloody funny! Awesome link - that guy has downloaded much of the entire Monty Python series! Good contribution Kai!! Thanks!

Yes I met Tom at International Coaches Conference 2007 in Vierumäki. It was a lot of fun and it was really interesting to meet people from different hockey cultures.