Students at Lakeland Catholic School District (LCSD) will be lacing up their skates alongside local teams in the coming school year.
LCSD announced last week they’ll be partnering with the Bonnyville Jr. A Pontiacs and the Cold Lake Jr. B Ice to offer hockey programs at Assumption Jr./Sr. High School and Notre Dame High School (NDHS).
After offering the Accelerated Athletics Program to Grade 9 students at NDHS in Bonnyville for the last two years, Amanda Wildman, communications officer for the district, said they investigated different ways to expand it.
“When we were thinking of hockey excellence, we thought of these teams for partnerships and we’re thrilled to be entering into a partnership with both the Cold Lake Ice and the Bonnyville Pontiacs for the upcoming school year,” she detailed.
Thirty NDHS students will be able to sign up to learn from the Pontiacs, while Assumption’s program with the Ice will have 24 spots available.
The goal is to keep student athletes in their home communities and assist them in developing the skills required for post-secondary scholarships in athletics.
The program will include a combination of on and off-ice components. The schools are in charge of the in-classroom aspects, while the teams will be managing instruction in the arena two sessions per week. Students from Grade 9 to 12 at both schools will have the opportunity to participate throughout the school year.
Training on hockey skills and concepts, sport psychology, nutrition, and leadership will be covered during the in-class sessions.
For NDHS students, Rick Swan, head coach for the Pontiacs, will be the coordinator, while assistant coach T.J. Millar will be on the ice with students as head instructor.
“Our current players this year will be involved with every session, and they’ll be involved assisting T.J. and be instructors,” Swan explained.
Wildman said LCSD is excited to see what the course can offer in the coming school year.
“We’re proud to offer a wide-range of programming, and this is just another option for offering an athletic program of this scope that allows us to diversify our programming. We love it when we can collaborate with community partners, and this is just another way that we’re working with partners in our community to bring our students unique programming.”
The local Jr. A team saw the project as the perfect fit.
“Notre Dame and the students here are a big part of who we want to associate ourselves with, and it’s just an opportunity for our players to grow on a different level away from the hockey side of it,” said Swan. “That’s why it’s important to us, because we want to give back. We take pride in what we do here, not just in terms of our performance on the ice, but what we give back to the community, and this is just another way of extending our philosophy.”
When it comes to future expansion, LCSD hopes to offer younger grades at Assumption the option of participating.
By partnering with the local hockey clubs, student athletes have a unique learning opportunity they might not have anywhere else.
“They want to make sure there’s an opportunity to enhance their physical well-being, and that’s the actual on-ice portion of it to make sure we teach, develop, and introduce new skills that kids normally wouldn’t get from their club because of the lack of ice time they have as well as the focus on team play,” noted Swan.
