The final day of development camp. The 10 day camp started on July 9th, the daily practices included Skating, Power Skating and other group drills. When not on the ice the players attended seminars which ranged from teaching them “how to deal with the media” and “how to cook your own pregame meal”. Kostitsyn and Archer were again both absent from todays practice.
9AM-10AM: I head out to rink #3 to watch the Chipchura group practice, I’m the only person in the stands (everyone else is at the other rink). The group starts off doing some figure-8 drills, followed by forwards and backwards skating. Korpikari looks very fatigued this morning and he stumbles through the drills, the group as a whole looked fatigued, its been a long 10 days. After some free skating it was onto resistance training with the elastic ropes tied to the bench, which was followed by the rope tied between 2 players, again I notice that the players look exhausted.
I switch to rink #4 and catch the final minutes of the practice. I notice that Ribeiro is at the camp for a second straight day, again he is working with the goalies along with Maxime Lapierre and Cory Urquhart. When the practice ended Ribeiro took the time to autograph a t-shirt a fan had handed him.
10:30AM-12PM: Today Ribeiro stayed for the 2nd practice and participated in the drills. The players went through the routine 1 on 0, 2 on 1, 2 on 2, 2 on 3 drills, the goalies faced more shots then usual today. Then it was onto the 3 forwards vs 2 D drill, Ribeiro, Lambert and Locke were used as a group of 3, Ribiero showed a bit of rust during the drill and mishandled a few passes, Lambert and Locke clicked well together, with Locke being the setup man and Lambert finishing off the plays. Lambert’s shot was on target today and he filled the net with it. The practice wrapped up after Andre Savard gathered the players at centre ice, gave them a short chat which was followed by the players tapping their sticks on the ice.
The 2 players who stood out today for me were Michael Lambert and Loic Lacasse, Lambert was a scoring machine today, he had pinpoint accuracy. Lacasse has improved tremendously since the start of the camp, all his work with Melanson is paying off. Loic made more then one spectacular save today.
Final Thoughts: That does it for development camp, its been a fun 10 days but all good things must come to an end. The 25 players who attended this camp have gained valuable on and off ice skills and experience that should help them for years to come. Some players have improved their game (Lacasse) while others have showed great character and leadership (Chipchura). Personally I cant say I’ve enjoyed writing articles for 10 straight days, but I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. I’ll see you in Pierrefonds this September for the Prospect Tourny!
| Development Camp Grades (based on performance at the camp) | ||
| LW | C | RW |
| Michael Lambert: B | Kyle Chipchura: A | Andrei Kostitsyn: A+ |
| Danny Stewart: B- | Corey Locke: A | Jonathan Ferland: B- |
| Gregory Stewart: B- | Christian Larrivee: B+ | Olivier Labelle: C+ |
| Jimmy Bonneau: C | Maxim Lapierre: B+ | Kevin Petit: D- |
| Cory Urquhart: C+ | ||
| D | ||
| Oskari Korpikari: A- | Andrew Archer: A | |
| Jean-Phillipe Cote: B+ | Ryan O’Byrne: A | |
| Mark Flood: B- | Alex-Dulac Lemelin: D+ | |
| Olivier Magnan: D | ||
| G | ||
| Yann Danis: A+ | ||
| Christopher Heino-Lindberg: A | ||
| Jaroslav Halak: B- | ||
| Loic Lacasse: C+ | ||
Some kids who kept annoying Corey Locke
Ribeiro signing an autograph
Ribeiro during a drill
Korpikari and a coach
Goodbye from Pierrefonds!