Hi everybody,

This is a rundown of what we are offering in the way of summer programs for players and potential players.

Ice time
We have time booked on Wednesday nights at Parade from mid-June to the end of August. I’ve attached a list of the dates and times. As in past summers the hour previous to ours we have sessions with youth players–U10s and U12s–scheduled. The coaches would appreciate any participation by Novas players for these sessions. It’s a great opportunity for our players to put back into the game, help younger players develop and have some fun.

We also have some extra ice time booked towards the end of July at VMIA (also attached to this post). These times are in the late morning on Mondays and Fridays and will allow us to scrimmage other high school teams, have Bob Lundeen work with us on stick-handling and skate a little bit more than we have the past couple of summers. We’ll scrimmage 4 teams in July. These scrimmages will take the place of the tournament in Blaine we’ve played in the last couple of summers. All players from this group will be eligible to play in the scrimmages. We realize not every player can make all the  scrimmages and that is fine as it’s a potentially large number of players we’ll be working into the games. The cost per player for the summer ice is $150. You can pay at the first session June 17.

Strength/Conditioning training
This summer we are offering the Washburn strength training program to all of our players–no matter what school you attend. It is a 6-week, 4 day a week, comprehensive training program that includes weight lifting, plyometric workouts, sport specific training as well as leadership training. I’ve attached the brochure Washburn put together with all the appropriate information. This sort of  program is an important part of athletic development for players of any sport. Your commitment and dedication to this aspect of development will make a difference in your game. Several of our Washburn players have taken part in this training and have said it was well worthwhile. I hope we can get a lot of players from other schools involved in this program too because it will make you better athletes which will only help our team.

Stick-handling/Dry-land training
Bob Lundeen, longtime coach at the high school and youth levels, has offered to help our players with stick-handling and dry-land training this summer. Bob, a Southwest graduate, would like to work with our players at McRae Park in south Minneapolis on the rink they have set up there year round. Again, this is a great chance for our kids to add puck-handling skills to their hockey toolbox. All of our players would benefit tremendously from this training. Bob would like the sessions to be a fun experience for the kids and has suggested playing music during the workouts and playing roller hockey to end each session. Bob also wants to make sure this training is affordable to our players.  He will charge each player $8 per session. We’ll get the schedule out for Bob’s training in the next couple of weeks.

I know many of our players are taking part in other programs and that is fantastic. We’ve designed these programs so as many of our players can participate in several or all of them. We realize there are conflicts and other priorities our kids will have—not in the least just being a kid in the summer. At the same time we want our kids to get together and work on their games and have fun in the process.

If you have any questions about any of this feel free to give me a call. Also, if you know of any players interested in skating with us this summer please feel free to forward this information on to them or put them in touch with me.

Thanks, hope to see you this summer.

John Wareham
Minneapolis Novas Head Coach
651.649.1061
john.wareham@comcast.net

Summer ice schedule:
(to open document - please click on link below and drag it to your desktop)

MplsNovasSummerIce.doc

Washburn brochure:
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WashburnBrochure.doc