The BEST environment
Success in hockey is comprised of a high number of variables, and at BYG we strive to be the very best in all facets of hockey training, not just one. Players and parents have a limited amount of time, money, and energy to devote to hockey, no matter how dedicated they are. That’s why you need to have the very best skill training, strength training, and small games all in one place.
Click through the tabs and information below to learn about what makes the BYG training environment so special.
Great stickhandling is like playing a violin – it involves each arm performing vastly different motions at the same time to create some of the most beautiful, almost otherworldly action. It’s VERY unintuitive. Players must learn and master many, many different, little motions separately so that they can come together during a game to perform fluid improvisations during a game. In our experience, there’s no such thing as a natural stickhandler. Stickhandling only appears natural after many hours of practice; but those hours of practice would all be in vain if they weren’t spent practicing the most efficient and effective techniques.
Shooting a puck hard (as in high velocity) is a fine thing. There are some technique changes that can produce noticeable upticks in MPH, and we certainly go over those. But, if you shoot the puck into a goalie’s chest or wide of the net then it doesn’t matter if you shoot 70mph or 5mph, it’s not going in. So accuracy is more important than speed. But, as Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”, so if you don’t get the shot off at all, then it doesn’t matter how fast OR how accurate you shoot that puck. So getting shots of quickly and from different angles relative to the net should always be our #1 priority. This is where most coaches and players make their big mistake. In being obsessed with velocity, players are often taught shooting techniques that cause them to get shots off slowly or not at all as they struggle to turn themselves to the “perfect” angle, place the puck in the “perfect” spot, and then wind up before they shoot. At BYG we teach a very unique brand of shooting that allows players to shoot from all angles with no wind up and without any loss of velocity. For real. We know it seems like players might have to sacrifice velocity to shoot without winding up, but we’ll show you how they don’t.
Enjoy Improving and
HAVE FUN
Fun is a priority at BYG. Besides the fun of seeing real improvement, we design our sessions so that the kids are having fun virtually every moment. We don’t like dry practices. We space out our drills and our small games so that player’s attention spans don’t wane. We have a wide variety of fun equipment, fun games, and good times that players enjoy each and every time they walk in the door. We’re very proud of the quality control at BYG when it comes to teaching. We employ a very small staff of trainers who ONLY work with individual players on individual technique year-round (no coaches – coaches are great, but their time has to be spent differently because they have a whole team to worry about), have played a minimum of D3 hockey, and are dedicated to making their full-time career as hockey trainers. People always compliment us on how professional our training sessions are run, how they’re noticeably superior to other hockey camps, which are often staffed by high school or college players who are just punching the clock, looking at it as a fun summer job. We love our jobs, no doubt, but this is our career and we’re dedicated to making every BYG session the very best.
Okay, so you got the right techniques and you got the best teachers to watch over you when you practice them. That’s a great start! But no matter how good the techniques, no matter how good the teaching, you don’t see improvement until you add VOLUME to the equation! Volume means lots of quality repetitions in a very short amount of time. That’s one of the reasons we utilize off-ice training along with the on-ice – players can get considerably more stickhandling and shooting repetitions off the ice than they can on the ice when they have a trainer to push the pace and a group of other players to race against and play small games with. We also believe in programs that last more than a week or two. We always schedule our programs so that players get consistent amounts of time with us over a long enough stretch to really make a difference. No seminars or clinics. That’s just information. We’ll give that away for free (please subscribe to our YouTube). What we’re offering is so much more – an environment where the repetitions are numerous and quality. We believe strongly that talents are not given; they’re strived for – “day by day, little by little”. That’s our motto. That’s what we believe in.
Home practice is good and it can play a part for dedicated players who have regular, quality teaching to help them learn how to practice the right way. But honestly, you have no idea how often we hear some version of, “Yea, we have hundreds of dollars of hockey equipment in our garage/basement/home that never/rarely gets touched.” Your player isn’t lazy. They’re not unmotivated and they are actually listening to you when you talk. It’s just that, as humans, everything in our nature rebels against practicing at an intense pace when we’re by ourselves. Home practice isn’t meant to be as intense or as frequent as guided group practice, and that’s where BYG really starts to make a huge difference – we provide accountability. Compared to other programs with flexible, virtually unlimited structures, we often find that players end up getting more hours of training at BYG because our programs include structured, repeating days and times. You know when your workout is going to be and you make the time for it. There’s nothing to get in the way, like going to the lake, hanging out with the friend/significant other, or just not feeling “up to it”. We feel that accountability is really one of the underrated aspects of creating a successful program.
We keep our off-ice training sessions limited to 8 players so that every player receives lots of one-on-one attention and lots of repetitions. When we play small games they rarely go more than 10 seconds without seeing the ball/puck on their stick. This way they’re able to develop situational awareness and they’re constantly having fun.
Something Different
All of these different variables create an environment that’s genuinely unique. There’s a million different AAA teams out there. Everybody plays AAA. That’s not going to get you ahead. Every high school has an STP program and every player does that, too. That’s not going to get you ahead. Build Your Game absolutely will. We’re unique enough, we’re exclusive enough (having a small staff of professional trainers means space in our programs is very limited), and we’re quality enough that we can really bend the curve of player improvement in a way that most will players will never experience. We can snap the career inertia caused by a system where players are all doing the same thing, playing against other similar players, practicing the same skills they already know how to perform. That’s why we’re the best. That’s why you should choose BYG!
Let’s Get Started.
Thanks for taking the time to learn about the mentality behind our training. We hope you take the next step and join us on becoming a better player.
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