When it comes to taking your game to the next level, what are your goals? How are you going to accomplish your goals?

The New Year brings new beginnings, on and off of the ice. For hockey players it’s an especially exciting time with holiday tournaments setting the stage for the second half of the season and playoffs.

It’s also a great time of the year to take a pause and evaluate your season.

• Are you improving your skills?
• Are you a good teammate?
• How many of your preseason goals have you accomplished?
• What are your New Year’s resolutions for hockey?

Only one of ten people who set a New Year’s resolution actually fulfill it!

Are you going to be part of the 90% or part of the 10% that dedicate themselves to becoming better. In this case, becoming a better hockey player includes developing skills in all areas of the game.

The great news is that we are going to incentivize you to keep your New Year’s resolution! For a limited time, all of our summer hockey camps are 10% off. Simply choose the date and location that works best for you, and our coaching staff will work hard to take your game to the next level!

We wish you nothing but the best in the 2024 and we hope you score like never before!

For 2024 Greg Carter Summer Hockey School dates and locations, click HERE. Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing you at the rink soon!

Thanksgiving is the perfect time for hockey players to reflect on the their season, and more specifically, all of the reasons they love the greatest sport in the world!

Coaches

Coaches play an integral part in the development of hockey players and if you are fortunate enough to have a really good coach, make sure they know how much you appreciate them! It takes a lot of time, energy and dedication to coach youth hockey teams, and what you see on the ice from a coach during practice is only part of the story. There is a lot of practice preparation that goes into that one hour practice session and game strategy. Oftentimes the coaches are the first to arrive and last to leave after a game or practice. To this day, I can still remember my favorite coaches and the important skills they taught me!

Equipment

Technology advancements in equipment over the recent years has been nothing short of amazing. Protective equipment like shoulder pads, gloves and pants (breezers) that used to absorb sweat and water and up weighing what seemed like five pounds heavier at the end of the game, have been replaced with ultra lightweight and super durable protective equipment. Skates are amazingly light and players are spoiled not having to go through a week long painful – sometimes tearful – break them in. Perhaps the greatest advancement has been in stick technology as once a player is strong enough to benefit from the flex, the ability to develop a crazy hard shot is just a matter of putting in the time

Parents

Hockey parents are the greatest sports parents ever. Parents willingly wake up long before the sun comes up only to stand in a freezing cold ice arena for that 6 a.m. mid-January practice. They travel hundreds and thousands of miles each season and attend enough weekend tournaments that they are on a first name basis with the front desk at the hotel. The dedication of hockey parents is awesome!

Opportunities 

There are more opportunities than ever for hockey players to develop their skills. From regular season hockey teams to in-season weekly skill camps and clinics. There are plenty of AAA teams and of course summer hockey camps and summer hockey schools. Skill development is a marathon, not a sprint, and there are so many great opportunities for players to master the fundamental skills required to reach their full potential

The Game of Hockey

Perhaps that best thing to be thankful for is the also the most simplistic, the basic fact that kids have the opportunity to play the greatest sport in the world! Hockey has brought so much excitement, joy and happiness, taught so many life lessons, developed so many friendships and brought so many people together in such a positive way.

Enjoy the season, fight through the adversity and always remember that hockey is a sport to be enjoyed, win or lose!

Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday. Stay tuned for our Early Bird Special featuring 10% off of your Summer 2024 Hockey School registration! For details, dates and more, click here.

As players move forward and gear up for the 2023-24 youth hockey season, it’s important to take the time to reflect back on what was accomplished during your summer hockey training. This should include making plans to maximize development for full impact this season!

Start by thinking back to last hockey season and the skill areas in which you struggled, how you planned to improve, and your goals for summer hockey. The areas that you identified as needing work in your post season evaluation were hopefully the key areas of focus over the summer. 

Now is the time to apply everything that you learned, as well as show off those skills that you mastered on the ice this summer. Whether you worked on your speed, stride, shot or stick handling, apply what you learned to every practice, every game and every shift this season.

Hockey is a game that requires many skills, and putting forth the time and effort in the off season to work hard on your development is part of the equation, but what you do on the ice this season is the true test. Are you prepared to apply your development to your everyday hockey experience? Remember, practice makes perfect!

Good luck with the start of your season, thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing you at the rink soon!

The 4th of July has come and gone and the youth hockey season will be here before we know it!

As youth hockey players gear up for the season, it’s important to reflect on what was accomplished during your summer hockey training. What are your plans to use the development to be a huge contributor and leader on your team this season?

A good way for young hockey players to start this season, is to reflect back to last season.

What areas of your game needed work? What goals did you set for the summer and did you accomplish them?

Hopefully your summer hockey training allowed you to refocus, work on new skills, get rid of any bad habits and position yourself for a great season.

The areas that you identified as needing work in your post season evaluation were hopefully the key areas of focus for you over the summer. Now is the time to apply everything that you learned, as well as show off those skills that you mastered. Maybe you needed to increase your speed, develop a better shot or improve your stick handling skills. Make sure you take what you learned and apply it to every practice, every game and every shift this season!

Hockey is a game that requires many skills, and putting forth the time and effort in the off-season to work hard on your development is part of the equation, but what you do on the ice this season is the true test. Are you prepared to apply your development to your everyday hockey experience?

Everyone has heard the slogan that ‘practice makes perfect’ and this is especially true when it comes to using the tools that you learned over the summer to improvement your skills each and every day this season.

Thanks for reading and have a great rest of the summer, we look forward to seeing you at the rink soon!

Our 29th summer of hockey camps begin this week! We can’t wait to hit the ice in Eagle River, Alaska and Northbrook, Illinois. The excitement we feel lacing up the skates each and every week of summer hockey camp is a big part of why we do what we do! We love to train youth hockey players!

Our team this summer is once again filled with talent, knowledge and personality! Our coaches are ready to help young hockey players develop fundamental skills and reach their full potential.

Whether you are skating with us this week, next month or during our last camps of the summer in New York or Connecticut, we are ready to go! We spent the winter making sure we are prepared to continue training with the time-tested CARTER method. Nearly three decades of successful training and also still bringing new knowledge and techniques to the camp!

If you are looking to improve your skills this summer but are still an ‘unsigned free agent’ you are in luck! We have limited spots left in select camps including Illinois, Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia!

For a complete summer hockey school listing including availability, CLICK HERE.

We hope you have set your goals for the summer and are planning to work hard to achieve them. As we have said in past posts, the only time success comes before work is in the dictionary!

Thanks for reading and make it a successful summer!

Each and every player we train over the summer has a common goal: to get better! The pressing question for each player is, how will you become a better player? While there is no simple, single answer to that question that would apply to every player, what we know is that it start with hockey SKILLS.

While this might seem super obvious, it is also something that can get lost in the many considerations players face each summer about how to become a better hockey player. Skill development should define your goals for your summer hockey training. Just as a professional in any trade or business needs to continually hone their specific skills in order to master their craft, hockey players need to continually work on very specific skill sets.

If you haven’t already done so, it’s a great idea to make a list of areas of your game that need improvement. Skating is something that every player should spend time working on. Shooting, passing and stickhandling are critical skills. Improving speed and quickness gets more important with each passing season as you advance through the ranks of youth hockey.

Look no further than the players who advance on and play at the highest levels of the game from the junior, collegiate and professional levels. The separation between good and great players is often times the smallest of margins. Skill is a huge factor in that equation.  In past blogs we have talked about the rule of 10,000 and other attributes that define high skill players, and it all starts with not just a general plan to play some hockey this summer, but instead a very specific plan to improve individual skills!

If you haven’t already made plans to attend one of our camps located in 12 states this summer please check out our dates and locations. We are excited to celebrate our 29th summer of hockey school and invite you to join us!