Interest in spring hockey has skyrocketed over the past few years and led to the Lakeland Lightning icing nine teams this season.
“The original intent was to build a competitive team in this area that didn't have to travel to the city to play hockey in the spring,” said Darcy Skarsen, who launched the Lightning program four seasons ago. “It has grown from there and we are trying to make sure that we are developing these kids properly.”
With no spring hockey program in the immediate area, Skarsen decided to create the Lightning and brought together players and coaches from Bonnyville, Cold Lake, St. Paul, Elk Point, Mallaig and Lac La Biche.
More and more players from across the Lakeland have joined the Lightning's spring hockey program, which has allowed it to produce nine competitive teams, playing games from late March into May.
“The players have made new friends, the coaches have networked and it has really helped grow the game in our region,” said Skarsen. “We use it as a building block for our AA program.”
An initiation team, peewee girls team and second atom team joined the organization's other six teams this year, growing the Lightning to nine teams in just its fourth season. It is a significant jump for an organization, which started with one team in 2013 and had only two teams in 2014.
Younger hockey players showed interested this past winter resulting in the Lightning creating the initiation spring program. A group of 36 seven-year-olds have signed up while a handful of six-year-olds also showed interest.
“It is more of a training program. We are not doing any tournaments or games for those guys,” said Skarsen. “It is just practices for four weeks and teaching them the game.”
The other age groups will play a small schedule of games and enter a tournament over the course of April and May. The teams set the schedules for themselves and will play as long as the players and coaches want to. The majority of the teams will play about five weeks of spring hockey, while a few will take it to about seven or eight weeks and play into May.
“It really has grown. It is pretty awesome,” said Skarsen.
The Lakeland Lightning will be back in August with a hockey camp, which they have run over the past few seasons out of the Centennial Centre. This summer they are planning on organizing their first ever conditioning camp, aimed at helping prepare players who are trying out for elite level hockey teams.
“It's all about conditioning and teaching the fundamentals,” said Skarsen.
