Kris King’s Hockey School Features Floorball
The OFUF was invited to Kris King’s Hockey School in Gravenhurst, Ontario to host a day’s worth of off-ice programming at the popular hockey camp. Kris King, who played 14 seasons in the NHL with the Winnipeg Jets/Phoenix Coyotes, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs, is the main attraction at the Gravenhurst Centennial Centre based hockey school. This year, over 200 hardcore hockey players signed up for the camp, most of them youth who are spending the summer in the affluent Muskokas.
The 100 participants on Thursday, August 2nd were split into three groups (8 & under, 9-11 and 12-16). When they finished their on-ice training portion they were introduced to floorball by the OFUF’s Juha Mikkola and Zorro-expert Mike Woods. The youth quickly picked up on the game and seemed to love every minute of it.
As the day wound down to a close, the Maple Leafs’ Darcy Tucker made an appearance in the gym as he picked up his son Cole who had just finished playing floorball. “This game is really fun!”, Darcy mentioned as he took his first wrist shots with a floorball stick. Darcy was captivated by Mike Woods’ zorro moves, which he tried to match but couldn’t immediately figure out… When Darcy was offered a zorro stick to take home to practice, he joked that there’s not much he can do to improve his hands at this point of his career.
Wilf Lade, a local teacher, is in charge of off-ice events for the Kris King Hockey School and he quickly became a floorball advocate after helping officiate for the day. “The best thing is how all abilities of youth can play together”, Wilf mentioned, “it’s a quick paced game that is a lot of fun and best of all it uses really simple equipment. I was very impressed with how quickly the kids really bought into it”. Wilf is planning to introduce the game to his school in the fall.
The day ended with a friendly game amongst the camp staff and the OFUF volunteers. Kris King got his first taste of floorball game action and it was clear that his on-ice skills transferred perfectly to floorball as he set-up several highlight reel goals, including the game winner. It helped to be playing with Juha Mikkola and Mike Woods, as the trio clicked for a couple of very nice plays. Wilf Lade stood on his head in the opposing net while Patrick Robertson and some of the other camp staff and participants lead the charge for Wilf’s team.
The OFUF wishes to thank Dave and Kris King, Wilf Lade and OFUF volunteers Mike Woods and Juha Mikkola for helping make this clinic a reality. We look forward to returning next year!