» Queenstown, NZ

Time flies when you’re having fun! Tomorrow is the last day on snow of a very successful camp. I’ve learned a ton this camp and I think things are heading in the right direction with my skiing. Still a lot of work to do, but a good start. Having a whole bunch of (new to me) coaches around throws a lot of new perspectives at you, which I think is really good. I’m working on some things that I’ve never tried before, and although things don’t always click or stick right away, I think it’s going to help tremendously in the long run.

Skiing with some of the top skiers in the world doesn’t hurt either.. Robbie Dixon has been skiing insane GS this camp. Watch out for him this year on the circuit, he is going to tear it up! And training Super G with the likes of Erik (Guay), Manny (Osbourne-P), Jan (Hudec) and Robbie has it’s advantages.





Tomorrow we have what we call the ‘Candy Bar Cup’. I guess it should be called the ‘Chocolate Bar Cup’, but our head coach is American... Anyways we’re grouped into teams of 4 racers (3 teams). We each take 4-6 runs, and the fastest 4 from each team member (so 16 runs per team) is added up to determine the winner. Everyone on the team gets into it because each team also has a handful of the coaches/staff as a support group. Heckling, betting, tactics and antics are to be expected! Theres nothing on the line other than pride and bragging rights for the rest of the year, which is huge of course! My team consists of Manny, Trevor White and Ben Thomsen. Should be fun!

Matt Price, our conditioning coach has started GPS tracking our courses and uploading them to Google Maps. It’s pretty neat, and when you switch to satellite view, you can actually see almost exactly what we are skiing (down to a few meters of satellite error). Check it out here. (Be sure to click satellite in the top right)

Beautiful morning at Cardrona


Cardrona


Kelby, Nella, Louis, Trevor, Ryan, and Trav watching the NZ Freeski Championships


These guys were good! (60 foot tabletop)


This is what I get for not wearing a stealth!


Mmmm.. tasty


New Zealand countryside

» Queenstown, NZ

Drills>Modified GS on SL Skis>GS

That’s how things have gone skiing wise during the first six days here (seventh was a day off).

» Ottawa, ON

The week I’ve been waiting for since I found out about it 2 months ago has finally come and gone. And boy, what a week it was. Each day went like this:

8am - Arrive at rink, 30 minutes of agility/warm up
9am - 10am - On ice skating & passing drills
10am - 11am - Scrimmage (White vs Red)
11am - 2pm - Eat & rest
2pm - 4:30pm - Gym workout

Needless to say it was an insanely tough week. Without a doubt the most difficult week of training I have ever done. But it was so much fun to get up every morning, lace up the skates and play hockey for two hours.

Check out a bunch more photos from the week here (I’m #32)

Videos to come soon! Videos now at the above link.

First morning. Lining up for skating drills


Followed by passing drills


And more skating drills!

One of the coolest aspects of the camp was that it was run by Felix Potvin, who played in the NHL for the Leafs while I lived in Toronto. It was super neat to meet my childhood hero and even play with him for a whole week. (Little known fact about me: I wanted to be a hockey goalie when I was growing up)

The Red team took the first two games with scores of 8-4 and 6-3. Being on the White team this was unacceptable! So we changed out game plan and evened the series, winning the next two games. Going into the final and deciding game tensions were high! But we managed to pull out of a 2-0 deficit after the first period and came back to win 5-4. I even scored the series winning goal a few minutes into the 3rd period!

The week really rekindled my love for hockey, which I haven’t played in several years, but am now playing several times a week. It’s great training and a ton of fun so why not?!

» Calgary, AB

Did my last Calgary workout for a while this morning. I’m heading back home to Ottawa at 6 tonight. The timing couldn’t be better because it snowed for about 12 hours yesterday! Yes, snow. In May. Can’t wait to get home to some balmy 30 degree weather!


The team’s trainer, Matt Price, has been taking a bunch of video of us during dryland over the past few weeks. He’s put together a few videos of the outdoor “Rocky” workout, MMA/kickboxing workout, and some floor hockey. Enjoy!