Educating the youngest hockey players about the realities of the sport they’re about to start playing was the focus of the annual “I Love Hockey” event held on Saturday.
“Kids have this perception of hockey that they’re going to skate fast and shoot. And then they get on the ice and they can’t stand up,” said Westlock Minor Hockey Association president Denise Boulerice. “It’s a try-it day. It’s just to make sure ... this is what they want to do before (their parents) register them and sign them up.”
About 28 kids between the ages of three to five years took part in the event at the Westlock Rotary Spirit Centre.
They were put into groups and then run through a series of exercises, like skating around pylons, shooting past a goal or diving across the ice.
Boulerice said all the exercises are geared towards introducing the children to different aspects of the game, including falling down.
She said they split up the kids so that they can keep them moving and engaged, rather than waiting for nearly other 30 other kids to skate around a line of pylons.
“It’s a pretty exciting day,” she added.
Ann-Marie Carnegie was one of the adults who were on the ice supervising the children.
She said there was quite a range of abilities amongst the youngsters taking part in “I Love Hockey,” as there were some who had been involved in it last year.
“(There was also) some new ones where it would have been their first time out on the ice,” she said. “It went very well considering the range of levels that the kids are.”
In place of the usual cookies and juice as a snack, the children and adults taking part in I Love Hockey were served donuts and coffee respectively.
Boulerice said Tim Hortons is a big sponsor of the Initiation program provincially, and now that there is a franchise in town, they’re working with the chain around sponsorship.
“(On Saturday), they offered donuts for the kids and coffee for the adults,” she said, noting there will be a Tim Hortons day in the future when league schedules are more firmed up.
One of the parents, Kristy Rasmussen, was entering her three-year-old son Jace in “I Love Hockey” this year. She had also brought her son Ryker out for the day a couple years ago.
“He (Jace) was very excited in his head to try and I wasn’t sure how he would actually do, but he loved it,” she said.
Having been involved in the “I Love Hockey” event twice now, Rasmussen said, “I think it’s a good introduction, to let kids try it before hockey.”
