Strathroy's Future Pro Goalie Camp: T Minus 2 and T Minus 1

Roman and I have had decent flight to Toronto and a drive up to the sleepy burgh of Strathroy, Ontario to partake in Steve McKichan’s Future Pro Camp.  Saturday was a rest day from the travels and a chance to get our feet underneath ourselves.  We took a quick ride up to visit a pro shop in nearby London that I dealt with for many years when we ran a hockey shop in Japan.  Roman was impressed with the size and was particularly enamored with a Vaughn V3 pro return trapper (Niklas Backstrom), but the Wild colouring scheme caused him to finally put them back on the shelf.  There was a great selection of goalie sticks with some deals on Warriors (Emery pattern).  We wrapped up our trip to London by raiding COSTCO for enough grub to last the weekend.

Sunday was still another rest day and chance to carb/hydrate up for coming week.  The weather has been hot and dry with only a mild wind blowing across the prairie-esque farmland.  Roman was getting anxious about missing his workout routines, so we decided to head to the Gemini Sportsplex which is the location of Future Pro Camps from Monday.  Via google map, I could see that the Gemini Sportsplex had an excellent track for Roman to bag a few clicks to stretch the legs.  Unprepared for the culture shock that would result, we pulled into the large, well maintained parking lot for the Gemini Sportsplex at around 10:30 am to find not a single vehicle in the parking lot and the Sportsplex locked up tight.  I understand it is in the summer, but I know in Halifax, there would not be an arena in the city with ice that would not have anyone on it even in the summer.  Whether that situation is a testament to the dedication to hockey in the city of Halifax or that HRM just doesn’t have enough ice to even let a sheet of glass sit idle for a whole day.

Anyways, after shaking my head in amazement, I let Roman hit the track until the heat and dry air took the extra jump out of his step.  The track was a decent rubberized asphalt, but wasn’t as nice as the training track as the Met Field in Sackville.  The track and sports fields were beautifully manicured, but the house flies from the surrounding farmlands were busy crawling over everything not moving (me) and I was glad to get back in the rental Jeep. 

We popped back to our residence for some more food and a little rest.  Roman and I are both starting to chomp at the bit to get going for the camp.  As with athletes, I’m sure, it is the time before the game or practice that are the most unsettling and slowest to move.