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The Road to College by Michael Boyle

May 29, 2017 by David Breen Leave a Comment

JUNE 9TH, 2008

Parents are being misled. Yes, all the tournament and camp organizers are deliberately misleading you. Parents shell out thousands of dollars for exposure camps and exposure tournaments for their son’s or daughter’s. The organizers tell you that attending a certain camp or playing in a certain tournament will improve your chances of getting a scholarship.

The bottom line is it’s not true. If your child is a football or hockey player four days of camp will not change him or her. Neither will a weekend tournament. Unfortunately, parents make a critical error at the wrong time. The most critical time in a young athletes career is the summer prior to their senior season. This is when a young player needs to train to prepare to have a great senior year. However, instead of preparation, parents choose exposure. The result is usually the same. The athlete goes to 5-6 “exposure” camps to be “seen” by college coaches. Instead of training and preparation the summer is about travel and “exposure”. The final result is that the athlete is not physically prepared for the senior year and ends up either getting injured or having a sub-par year. Coaches that might have had interest suddenly disappear. Sure things turn into maybes. Suddenly all the time spent on exposure seems wasted as there is no “product” to expose.

The road to college sports should go right through a weightroom. I know this sounds old fashioned but, it’s true. If your goal is to play college sports, then, get ready to play. Don’t spend all summer trying to convince coaches how good you are. Spend the summer trying to get better so coaches will notice you. You can’t network your way into college sports and even if you can, in these days of email etc., send a letter and a video.

Last summer I discouraged the coaches and parents of some of the best prep school football players in Eastern Mass to forgo the five camp plan and train. We instead chose to focus on the 1 or 2 camps the coach and parents thought would have the most value and, focus on training. The results were outstanding. The team had a great season, losing only two games, the players who trained were clearly improved and the players who were seniors are all going to the college of their choice.

It worked out exactly as I said it would because our plan makes sense.

The ideas of athlete development and athlete exposure are almost polar opposites. The key is to balance the need to be seen by and meet college coaches with the need to train to be able to impress coaches during the critical senior year.

In football it’s camps, in basketball and baseball it’s AAU, in hockey it’s tournaments. Every sport has entrepreneurs and organizers who swear they know the answer. The problem is they have a vested financial interest in you and your child. They need you to make money. The truth is, so do I. However, Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning was founded to help young athletes do exactly what the pro and collegiate athletes do in the off-season, train. The reason we have had such great success is because we do it right. Our program is intentionally modeled on the programs that have helped high school, college and professional athletes succeed for decades. The programs are not flashy or sexy. In fact they are difficult and demanding. However, they are designed around a successful formula, not a quick buck strategy. This summer you have a decision to make. You can try to show everyone how good you are in a few camps or tournaments or, you can actually work at getting better and preparing for the seasons that really matter.

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The Importance of Fun in Hockey by Kim Brandvold

May 29, 2017 by microice Leave a Comment

APRIL 29TH, 2008

Fun is something that coaches and parents forget about when their young athletes start becoming good players and play at higher levels. Whatever happened to fun first then winning second? Fun creates excitement, which creates a good learning environment. A lot of times kids will not even know the right score of the game, but one thing is for sure: The parents always do…Sometimes parents gets as much or even more in to a game than the players, that is not right. USA Hockey had to create a new slogan (“relax it’s just a game”) because parents were getting out of control and fighting in the stands and yelling at coaches and the referees.

When a young player has fun, he/she wants to focus and they want to learn. We feel like we have created that kind of an environment here at Micro Ice and believe we can provide fun in combination with improvement, to the point where it’s an unbeatable experience.

The facts are that very few kids will play in the NHL, Hockey East or even in High School. Fewer and fewer kids make it to each level and that is important to know for parents, so they can focus on helping their young athletes develop and have fun while developing a love for the sport. Don’t rush around thinking that your son/daughter will make Division 1 College or the NHL, let him/her play with his/her friends and have fun!

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Site Launch

April 23, 2017 by microice Leave a Comment

Our new website is finally up. We’ve worked hard to get a beautiful new site ready and we’re proud to show it off. Thanks for reading our blog. We have lots of great blog posts in the works. Please check back or contact us now to find out how we can help you.

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