INNISFAIL – The new batch of baby eagles have taken flight for the season.
That's the hockey season of course, and Innisfail's tiniest and youngest players are enthusiastically busy with hour-long weekly practices at the Innisfail Arena.
The Innisfail Tim Hortons Eaglets took to the ice for the fourth time this autumn last Friday (Nov. 3). There are 24 four-year-old players with the team this year, including seven girls, the most ever for the team.
They are being tutored by a team of coaches on the basics of Canada's great wintertime sport.
“We try to get them standing up. We first go from falling down and how to fall down to the ice, how to lay on the ice and how to get up,” said coach Bernie Vanderham, who leads the team with his son Logan. “And then we just start walking and then from there we work into a faster walk, progressing into a little bit of a run and walking into a two-foot slide, and a one-foot slide.”
After three previous practices of standing, falling and sliding the team finally got to see some pucks on Nov. 3.
“We've got to throw them out. Probably next week we will do a soccer game,” said Vanderham, who is in his 12th year of coaching the Eaglets. “Soccer is really good. That is why I have the soccer ball out, for the agility on their ankles. They are then concentrating on the soccer ball and not on their skating. If you can take their minds off from what they are doing and focus on a goal forward then they are probably going to do it easier and do it without even realizing they are doing it.”
Vanderham said the goal for the team is to have them play a couple of games at the end the year after 20 weeks of practices. But getting to that point means the focus will always be on practicing the basics.
“We try to get them to be able to skate, carry the puck so they can go on a breakaway to shoot on net and taking shots,” he said, adding the team will also play during the intermission at a Red Deer Rebels game on March 2.
For more on the Eaglets program go to the Innisfail Minor Hockey Association website at www.innisfailminorhockey.com
Bernie Vanderham, head coach
"We try to get them standing up. We first go from falling down and how to fall down to the ice, how to lay on the ice and how to get up."
