The rise of hockey academies over the past two decades has coincided with an exponential rise in the cost of producing players capable of continuing to play in competitive leagues with and against the best of their age group peers as they edge into adulthood.
To belong to some of the privately-owned academies in the province, it costs families as much as $30,000 or $40,000 per year for a kid to live and breathe hockey, playing on a team in the Canadian Sports School Hockey Association.
For players and their families who think they might have future in the game the academies are increasingly looked upon as a more direct path to junior, college and pro hockey. But for young teens living in northern B.C. that means leaving home at a tender age to live in another city with billet hosts.
Mike Peterson wants to plug that talent drain and provide a cheaper homegrown alternative to those pricey academies down south.
Building on the Northern Ice Sports minor hockey house program he started in 2020 at Chad Staley Memorial Arena at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club, Peterson is creating a Program of Excellence rep-prep instructional program to keep the city’s most promising young players close to home.
Peterson and business partner Chris Hunter each have 13-year-old sons playing for the Prince George Minor Hockey Association U-15 Tier 2 Cougars and they don’t want them to have to leave home to play hockey.
“We’ve been seeing it for 10, 15, 20 years - sending your kid away at 14 seems crazy - so we can provide a cost-effective local option that is geared to high performance,” said Peterson.
“We’re prepping our kids to get into the Cariboo (Cougars) rep stream. With Northern ICE Sports, our philosophy was always youth and community sport, making it cost effective, and we’re going to keep that and focus a lot of house development. We’re going to maintain our existing programming and services but this is the next step in our evolution.”
The fee for the NIS program will be $950 plus GST per month. A month-to-month commitment is all that’s required.
The Northern ICE Program of Excellence will serve as a feeder program for the Cariboo Cougars U-15 triple A program, while female players will funnel into the Northern Capital U-18 triple-A team.
“Our house programming is amazing, nothing but positive feedback,” said Peterson. “But people are saying there’s a gap, where do our kids got to get that high performance, and we’re trying to fill that gap.”
Kevin Martin a former Spruce Kings forward who played college hockey at SAIT in Calgary and played professionally in Germany, will serve as Program of Excellence head coach to oversee the U-11, U-13, U-15 and U-15-17 groups of six-12 players in each, set to begin training in April.
“We want to do the high development side but we also want to make sure kids are learning the value of how you can use hockey to teach life skills,” said Peterson. “We’ve still got our base programming for kids that just want to play house (league) and have fun. This is intended for kids that really want to challenge themselves to get to that next level.”
Each week, players will get three one-hour on-ice sessions per week as well as dryland training.
“We have all the tools here in Prince George, but there’s no one place to go,” said Martin. “We have great programs in triple-A, junior A and the WHL, it’s the kids that are coming up, there’s nowhere for them to develop as much.
“It’s the perception. When you’re 16 or 17 you have to go somewhere to play a higher level, but not when you’re 11 or 12. We’re losing kids and families are having to split up. We have to tools to offer programs where they won’t have to do that anymore.”
Martin used the example of his own 14-year-old son Gavin who decided after years of playing house league hockey with his dad as coach he wanted to take the game more seriously and pursue hockey in a big way.
“His switch went off to get better and it happened at 14,” said Martin. “Kids all develop at a different time so a kid that’s 11 still trying to figure himself out, it doesn’t mean he’s not going to be one of the best kids at 15. It’s just he’s not there yet.
“For kids in the North there’s no reason to go anywhere else until you start playing that high elite hockey.”
Martin coached 10 years in the PGMHA. He coached in hockey schools while he was with the Spruce Kings, Kimberley Dynamiters and SAIT Trojans and also coached professionally for two years in Bad Kissingen, Germany as a player-coach on his own team and in a kids club program.
He grew up in Prince George playing on outdoor rinks and had the practice time needed to develop the skills it took to get to junior hockey, but those rinks mostly do not exist anymore and skill development suffers as a result.
Martin says minor hockey house is geared towards games and doesn’t offer enough practice time for most kids to learn all aspects of the game. The rep-prep program will give them that time.
“Half of it is on the ice and half of it is off the ice so the other thing we want to teach is hockey’s a tool for life skills off the ice,” said Martin. “It’s how to meet new people, how to treat people, how to win, how to lose and how to deal with adversity that team sports like hockey bring out.”
NIS will also bring in active and former junior and pro players to serve as guest coaches for the Program of Excellence.
For more information go to the website.
