SRO at KCI...Development Camp Closes

It was standing room only at Kettler Capitals Iceplex today as the 2008 development camp came to a close. In addition to the usual amusements – street hockey and moon bounce for the kids, music, and the club’s equipment sale – there was the week-ending scrimmage of Capital hopefuls.

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The game itself was competitive, although the fact that these are kids who have not played with one another for long made things choppy and lacking in flow from time to time. Some youngsters did stand out though…

Simeon Varlamov – wearing the white colors today – looked a good deal sharper than we remember seeing him last year. Much quicker and much better at anticipating plays. He had many more chances to fend off than did his counterpart – Michal Neuvirth. He earned the round of applause he skated off to mid-way through the second period.

Oscar Osala had a difficult time keeping his footing. Maybe it was a skate problem, but he spent a lot of time picking himself up off the KCI surface. But pick himself up he did, not quitting on plays.

Francois Bouchard had a difficult time of his own, it seemed, for two periods (looking as if he just wasn’t quite in sync), but he was in the middle of things at the end of the contest and in the extra time/shootout. His spin-o-rama shootout move was rather…interesting.

The Blue squad had the best of things early, but it was the White squad that had the advantage in the end. And the physical edge to the play picked up as the minutes were winding down.

We’re rooting for Stefan Della Rovere to make this team some time down the road. He was quite the bundle of energy and grit out there. Even in an environment where one might not see quite the level or intensity of hitting one would see in real games, he was out there plugging away making his presence felt.

It really was amazing to see a crowd as large as this in the middle of July for hockey. Not only were the stands filled, but in the balcony the crowd was several deep along the railing, and the lobby and common areas of KCI were active, as well.

To all the participants and to the Caps…congratulations on a great camp. It was quite entertaining and a signal that things continue to look promising for this organization.

Day Two...The Need for Speed

Today was Day Two of "Christmas Hockey in July" at Kettler Capitals Iceplex. We took in the morning session with the Group B players, and the keywords seemed to be "gadgets" and "speed." The first half of the session was devoted to measurement -- spider-like meters set up around the ice surface in what seemed to be an effort to measure individual players' speed...blue line-to-blue line, taking corners, and a number of slalom-type courses. After a few of those, it seemed the guys were ready (we'd have been dead).



After the ice was resurfaced, Coach Boudreau took over the session and worked the boys through a number of skating drills. The Coach does seem to be in his element, taking advantage of the teaching moment. Some of the time, it almost looked as if the drills were as much an effort to see who could remember the instructions...


The highlight, though, was a competition at the end of the session. The group was divided into two squads, and pucks were lined up at each blue line. The object of the exercise was to deposit all of the pucks into the net, players taking turns in the effort. If a player missed, he had to collect the puck and high-tail it back to the blue line, leaving the biscuit for another player. First team to clean its blue line of all the pucks wins. The group shooting at the balcony end of the ice fell behind early and at one point had four pucks left to the Caps "Retired Numbers" end group's one puck remaining. But the Balcony Boys crawled back to tie things up, each group with a puck remaining. This brought out the competitive juices of each team as the tempo picked up in skating in, shooting, and -- several times, it turned out -- lugging the puck back to the blue line to get the next skater on.

Finally, the Balcony boys completed their comeback, and you'd have thought the guys had won a championship as they leaped off the bench to congratulate one another. The losers had to stick around to do a round of "herbies" (the full herbie...blue line/back, red line/back, far blue line/back, far goal line/back).

All in all, a very nice way to spend a summer's day in sweltering DC.



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