It may be summer but for a lot of youngsters that means back to school. Hockey school that is.
Twenty-one players took to the ice at Oceanside Place last weekend for the start of Acres Hockey second session.
Camp founder Henry Acres was out on the ice and in his element putting the young charges through their paces. Manning the information table and helping keep things running smoothly, as she so often does, was Acres’ mom Betty Ann.
“It’s going really good,” she said, adding, “the kids are certainly keeping (Henry) busy.”
“This is our sixth year and it looks like its our best year ever (in terms of numbers),” said the always upbeat Betty Ann, adding 49 players signed up for the second week of Acres Hockey — 28 of them in the group for 9-11 year olds, and the rest are 12-14 year olds.
About 40 per cent of the kids are from out of town from as far away as Iowa and quite a few from Alberta.
Each group is on the ice twice a day all week (morning and afternoon) for 90 minutes, and they also do drills outside.
New this year are classes meant to teach the players how to prevent concussions.
“It’s a good camp, no doubt about it. We’ve been to quite a few different camps and this is the best one … it’s more hands on, and the kids really enjoy themselves,” said hockey dad Brad Templeton, whose son Conner is back for his second year.
Brad’s wife and daughter also made the trip again as well.
His son, he said, “liked it so much last year he wanted to come back … the car can pretty much drive itself here now,” Brad joked, pointing out they were also in town two weeks ago for Acres’ D-man camp.
