Colorado Rampage Hockey: October 2013

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Air Force Sweeps Penn State

Jonathan Valtin, Bo Hanson, Sam Thrutchley at the Air Force-Penn State Game Saturday Night.

Nick Halloran and Jack Venutto in stands wathcing Air Force warmups.

Nick Halloran's big brother and Air Force defenseman, #40, Alex Halloran.

Rampage 16's Defeat Thunderbirds 16's

SATURDAY OCTOBER 19TH

BIG BEAR RINK

A BIG WIN FOR THE RAMPAGE 16'S ON SATURDAY.

AFTER A DISAPPOINTING LOSS TO THE T-BIRDS FRIDAY NIGHT... THE RAMPAGE CAME BACK STRONG THE FOLLOWING DAY.

THEY WENT INTO THE THUNDERBIRD RINK AND OWNED IT.

OUTSHOOTNG AND OUTPLAYING THE T-BIRDS, IT WAS CLEAR THERE'S A NEW BOSS IN TOWN.

FINAL SCORE: RAMPAGE 3, TBIRDS 2.

AND THE BUZZER GOES--- GAME OVER.

"CAN YOU BELIEVE WE JUST LOST?"

RAMPAGE CELEBRATE... T-BIRDS CONTEMPLATE.

NICK CARDIN

NICK HALLORAN, ALL SMILES AFTER DEFEATING THE THUNDERBIRDS. MORE TO COME!

GREAT JOB GOALIE! MAX LUCAS EARNS A BIG NET MINDER WIN.

THE AMAZING COACH PAT BINGHMAM

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Tier I Elite Tournament

Sprinfgield, MA

Game 1

Win: Colorado Ramage 16's 5

vs.

Kansas City Mavs Elite 2

Rampage Goals: Bo Hanson, Nick Halloran, Nick Cardin, Thane Owens and AJ Vanderbeck

Assists: AJ Vanderbeck(2), Alex Truscott, Jesse Sepper, Ty Pochpinski and Nick Halloran

Photos: Mike Halloran

Monday, October 7, 2013

Trainer's innovative regimen key to Crosby's game

By Shawn P. Roarke - NHL.com Senior Managing Editor

There are few shortcuts in Sidney Crosby's game, which many describe as the most complete in the NHL today.

Not surprisingly, there are even fewer shortcuts in Crosby's preparation off the ice.

At an early age, it was abundantly clear Crosby had the natural skills to play elite-level hockey, but the emerging star in his family knew the best way to make that dream become reality was to train his body to get the most out of those skills.

And as is the case with most success stories, divine providence came into play. As a 13-year-old with a burgeoning reputation as the best teenage player in Canada, Crosby ran into trainer Andy O'Brien, an unproven commodity who had just graduated from college with a kinesiology degree, at a summer hockey camp.

From there, a relationship was born that helped Crosby turn into the elite player he is today.

As a new breed of athletic trainer, O'Brien was not overly enamored with the old-school ways of throwing iron around a gym to build muscle mass.

Sidney Crosby (Getty Images) Instead, he examined the game with a clinical eye and designed a workout regimen that would prepare Crosby for the challenges that lay ahead in the NHL.

Many of the drills introduced into Crosby's training regimen a decade ago remain in place today.

"It's important when you are training to not just train in a static environment, but to train dynamically and identify some of the key variables you need in hockey," O'Brien said.

That led him to examine the demands the game -- shooting and skating -- and design exercises to address the demands placed on the body by what are unnatural activities.

"Hockey is not about muscles working individually," O'Brien said. "They really have to work in sequence. You have to be really flexible in certain areas, but you have to be strong and stable in other areas, as well."

As we have learned in the past decade, nothing is more important to a hockey player than his core -- the group of abdominal and gluteal muscles that are so instrumental in generating skating power and maintaining balance, while also helping the player avoid injury.

In fact, much of O'Brien's program is designed around activating the abdominal and gluteal muscles to help a skater generate a more powerful stride.

He also stresses work on the sagittal plane of motion (forward and backward motions), an emphasis O'Brien believes is ignored in many of the workout regimens used by hockey players.

The results of O'Brien's outside-the-box thinking are there for all to see. Crosby has been a paragon of health -- aside from an ankle injury -- since entering the NHL as an 18-year-old. He possesses one of the most fluid and dynamic skating strides in the League and is near impossible to knock off the puck.

"I think that's so important for a hockey player now," Crosby said of his emphasis on lower-body development. "And as much as you're trying to build and gain strength, you're also trying to make sure that you stay healthy and prevent injuries as best you can.

"That's really what goes into my mind when I'm preparing for a season. I think strength-wise, speed-wise, you are just always trying to gain that edge."

"Hockey is not about muscles working individually. They really have to work in sequence. You have to be really flexible in certain areas, but you have to be strong and stable in other areas, as well." -- Andy O'Brien
And while Crosby has put in all the work in the gym, he knows he would not be where he is today without input from O'Brien.

"He's kind of a multi-sport trainer, and so for me I enjoy being athletic," Crosby told NHL.com. "I don't mind lifting weights, but I like trying to be athletic when I'm doing it, too. I've been with him for nine years, and it's been good.

"He's got a pretty good feel on things, and I enjoy the stuff we do. It's always new and when you train every day in the summer, it needs to be new. I think he does a good job of that."

via:nhl.com

The Truth About Sidney Crosby

BY KEVIN NEELD

via:kevinneeld.com

"The first time I heard the name Sidney Crosby, I was a senior in high school. I was at practice for my Junior Flyers team, the week before we headed up north to play a tournament against many of the top Tier 1 teams in the country, including Crosby’s Shattuck St. Mary’s. At that time (’02-’03) Crosby was 15 years old and thought of as the top midget-aged player in North America. No pressure.

In the seven years following that tournament, Crosby has revived a dying NHL organization (Pittsburgh Penguins), been named Team Captain of now one of the top teams in the world, led his team to two Stanley Cup Finals, winning the second, and most recently scored the overtime Gold Medal winning goal in the 2010 Winter Olympics for Canada. This is on top of a LONG list of other personal and team accomplishments on his road to the NHL (read more here: Sidney Crosby). At the age of 23, Crosby has accomplished more than 99% of professional hockey players ever will. And after I gave my Fantasy Hockey Team a pep talk a few games into the year, Crosby has been on fire this season as well.

Admittedly, I wasn’t always the biggest Crosby fan. When he first joined the NHL, he struck me as a little “soft”. Being a bit more objective, maybe that behavior is a little more understandable given how young he was. After all, you wouldn’t throw an exceptionally talented peewee into a midget game and expect him to be at the same physical and mental maturity level as the other players.

Now, I’m a huge Crosby supporter. There is no denying what he’s done for hockey. With the help of a few timely rule changes and an exciting supporting cast (Ovehckin, Datsyuk, etc.), Crosby has helped drastically improve hockey’s popularity across the U.S. Who knows, a few more months and hockey may overtake Nascar in the sports popularity ranks! On top of that, I’ve had the opportunity to learn a bit more about Crosby’s character over the last year, leading me to have a deeper respect for what he’s been able to accomplish. He’s not a superstar by accident.

The correlation between hockey playing ability and beard growing ability isn’t well established.

From talking to people that have worked with and around Crosby, I’ve heard one thing consistently:

“He is always trying to get better.”

If he was a Tier II youth player trying to make the jump to Tier I, you’d expect that. If he was a college player trying to catch the eye of pro scouts, you’d expect that. Even if he was an AHL player or mediocre NHL player that wanted to make a more consistent contribution, you may expect that. Crosby is none of those. An argument could be made that he is the best player in the world, yet he still strives to be better.

I’ve been around hockey for the last 18 years and there is one thing that limits player and team development as much as, if not more than anything else:

"Contentedness."

I think every player should have the experience of being one of the “go-to” players on their team. It builds confidence to be a leader in some way. Likewise, I think every player should have the experience of being on a team that has a legitimate chance of winning a championship of some sorts. With that said, these successes should never justify cockiness, arrogance, or contentedness.

If a player is SERIOUS about competing at the next level, they need to consistently work to improve their game. This includes off-ice training , power skating, puck handling, studying game film, and watching games at the nextl level to prepare mentally for what is to come. The name of the game is always potential fulfillment. Everyone’s potential is different, but every player deserves to feel the success and accomplishment associated with fulfilling it. There is no certainty that past successes will lead to future ones. Everyone that has been around hockey for an appreciable amount of time has seen standouts at one level flounder at the next, or, contrarily, mediocre players at one level flourish at the next. Often times, it’s preparation time that explains this discrepancy.

Sidney Crosby may be the best hockey player in the world, yet he meticulously analyzes his game for areas to improve and tirelessly works to make these improvements. This characteristic is both admirable and inspirational, and represents a humility that every player should adopt. Things don’t always go according to plan:

But the best way to guarantee your own success is to never stop working toward improving yourself as a player and as a teammate."

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

via:kevinneeld.com