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Hockey training goes high tech
J.D. Gravenor
The Gazette
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Scott Bailey demonstrates a pass and shooting drill. Tyrel Featherstone, The Gazette
Training is something athletes have had in common since long before the ancient Olympics. But while a few laps around the olive grove might have worked for champion runner Leonidis of Rhodes in 164 B.C., modern training methods and technology have become incredibly specialized and advanced.
That is particularly true in Dorval where a modern hockey-training facility opened its doors this month on the east service road of the Trans-Canada Highway near Sources Blvd.
The new Centre de Développement Hockey is described by co-owner and long-time hockey educator Alain Nadeau as an off-ice training facility, and his enthusiasm knows few bounds.
“At the CDH, we are moving to another level,” he says. “The training is going to be absolutely amazing.”
In fact, the CDH is the first hockey-specific training facility in Quebec – and only the third in Canada – to adopt the methods and technology of Total Hockey Training Systems, a hockey-training company founded in the Midwestern United States by ex-NHLer Dean Talafous.
“We bought the rights for Quebec,” Nadeau said. “We plan to open another centre in Laval within 18 months and one on the South Shore within two years.”
Each of the four training stations features computer-driven high-tech touches like cameras, body sensors, special screens and synthetic ice that Nadeau says feels a lot like the real thing.
The fake ice sits atop a 60-foot ramp that is built on a five-degree incline. That’s where hockey players train to increase their on-ice speed.
“It is for quick starts or explosion for step quickness,” said Nadeau, whose clientele ranges from elementary school kids to Quebec Major Junior Hockey League players.
The ramp’s artificial ice surface is lined with a series of sensors to measure the athlete’s step-quickness. Players can later access these measurements, scores and times at home via the internet thanks to a swipe-card system that registers the trainee’s data at every station.
The three other training stations at the CDH include a multi-tasking slideboard, which helps players work on their stride. It uses special eye-training video screens to improve awareness of their skating even as they work on their puck-guiding talents. There is also a target-light station, where players develop their shots on net, and another installation devoted to measuring and improving the athletes stickhandling prowess.
“Every player at every station is challenged,” Nadeau said. “The time or speed of everything is calculated. Every kid who walks in will have a bar-coded card. Every station has scanners. Your best time will show so you know what time you have to beat.”
Nadeau says the technology adds a twenty-first century dimension to each of the training installations.
“Once you get home after a session, all your stats show right away. Every stat is showing up right away. You can compare yourself with all the other Total Hockey outlets across North America.”