U.S. Alpine Men Hit the Ice at Hockey Camp

Utah thermometers were reading in the high nineties over the weekend, but it was plenty cool inside the Park City Ice Arena as the U.S. Men’s Alpine Ski Team gathered for a pre-season hockey camp, the fourth of its kind.

Both speed and tech skiers met at the team’s headquarters last week (July 16-18) for three days of team building, training and competition.

“The whole point of this is to get the staff and athletes working hard together,” said head coach Sasha Rearick, who handed over the hockey coaching to two pros and joined his racers and fellow coahces in drills and games on the ice. ”We’re here getting coached in something that we’re not used to, but it’s also a sport that is a great cross training event for us.”

Hockey has become a popular training tool for alpine racers. Both the Canadian and Austrian teams recently held hockey camps of their own in preparation for the international, on-ice meetings that are nearly a weekly occurrence amongst the teams on the World Cup tour.

The camp also included some serious business as the athletes prepare to return to snow in New Zealand and Chile in the coming weeks. “It’s a hard conditioning camp, we first came in and tested and I’m really stoked with how hard the guys have been working and its showing in the test results,” said Rearick. “Certain guys have made huge progress, Erik Fisher and Travis Ganong especially have made big steps in their conditioning.

“The main point of the camp is team dynamics, where everybody comes out here and works hard together,” continued Rearick. “We have new staff new, new coaches and new athletes that are moving into the national team, getting them to work together is a lot of fun.”
   
Fisher, who is battling back from injuries that slowed his progress last season, said the camp was great way to unify the team while getting some training in.  
 
“It’s been fun, it’s nice to get out of the gym for a change and nice to have a little change of pace. It’s a good time to have all the guys together,” said Fisher, who is excited to get to the team’s first on-snow camp in New Zealand after a summer of kite boarding. “I’ve been off snow for five months now so it’s time to get back at it.”

Tech skier Tim Jitloff, who keeps his hockey skills sharp during the summer playing in pick up games at the arena, said time on the ice during the dry months leads to success on the race course. “It’s a great way to stay fit, have some fun, it requires a lot of ability and balance and all the stuff that you’re going to need for ski racing,” he said. ”It’s a little bit nicer to come do this some times, rather than sit on a bike for two and half hours.” – Eric Williams

Image: Erik Fisher and Ted Ligety chase the puck during a drill at hockey camp.