It's all about opportunity.
From Friday to Sunday at the Kin Centre, the Greater Strides Hockey Academy will be offering a free camp for aboriginal players aged five to 17. Greater Strides CEO and president Brantt Myhres -- who has Metis heritage and played 154 games in the NHL -- said he's hoping at least 100 kids take advantage of the camp and all it has to offer.
"I think that participation in sports is the number one thing, just getting them active," Myhres said of the camp's priority. "We understand some of the obstacles they face when it comes to nutrition and healthy living so our goal is to just get them out of the house, get them interactive with kids their own age."
Players can register online at www.greaterstrides.ca. Registration will also take place at the Sandman Signature Hotel, 2990 Recreation Place, starting at 9 a.m. on Friday.
As an added bonus, former NHLer Georges Laraque will be a special guest at the camp, which will include ice sessions, swimming, dryland training and a cultural awareness component that will see Lheidli T'enneh chief Dominic Frederick spend time with the attendees.
Instructors will include Myhres, Travis Fleury (brother of Theo Fleury) , Meagan Big Snake, Will Pozo and Shane Spriggs.
In the NHL, Myhres skated at forward for the Tampa Bay Lightning, Philadelphia Flyers, San Jose Sharks, Nashville Predators, Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins. He also spent significant time in the minors in a professional career that stretched from 1993 to 2007.
Myhres -- who played junior hockey with the Portland Winter Hawks -- made it to the pro level despite some of the challenges of his own youth in Cold Lake, Alta., a town surrounded by reserve land.
"I was lucky to make some right decisions at a young age but some of my friends that were as talented or more talented than I was dropped off the face of the earth at around 14 or 15," he said. "Just not enough good role models and enough good leaders in the community."
Some of the demons that chased Myhres and his hockey-playing buddies caught him while he was in the NHL. His days in the league were marked so heavily by substance abuse that he said he's lucky to be alive today.
"I grew up with some good support casts but I too struggled with drugs and alcohol from a young age," he said. "I've got close to five years sober now but I got suspended by the National Hockey League four times. I went through all of it."
The Calgary-based Greater Strides Hockey Academy is now in its second year of promoting skill development and spreading positive messages to aboriginal youth. Myhres's long-term goal is to open a private school in Red Deer for the top 50 aboriginal players in the country.
"We've got a lot of work to do but we're definitely chipping away at the stone," he said.
