Friday, May 20, 2011

OKANAGAN HOCKEY ACADEMY, 1, 2, 3... NOT IT.

I am trying to do enough research to choose the best hockey academy for my child. My experience thus far is that it is a game of roulette....which team, coach, billet, tournaments, even which bus transports them. Get the wrong one and you have paid to offer a disadvantage to your child. However, the players all seem happy regardless of whatever challenges they face (bullying, poor nutrition at billets homes, frequent bus break downs, over crowded hotel rooms, bad road trip meal planning....) Is any academy doing a better job of looking after the players? The front line workers (coach) should not bear all the responsibility. Their job is to coach. They need better support.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

POE

Anonymous said...

Wow did your son or daughter actually play here, you have missd the effect of this academy, maybe the fact that the people that comment on here actually never even took part or supported the development of there player is what happened, you always have a choice, next time make the one that works for you not jst your player, you sound like you and POE deserve each other.

Anonymous said...

Hi Andy Oakes! I see enrolment is still suffering. If you want to improve enrolment, build a better program.

Anonymous said...

My reply to "WOW" on July 1st....did you read my question? because your post does not provide any answers. It really looks like you wrote to insult me and my interest in finding out if any of the Canadian Hockey schools do a better job than the others. I hope you don't represent any of the academies...To others with a desire to help....I am still interested in comments about a hockey academy that is doing an accountable job of looking after their players. any billets have some opinions to share?!!!

Anonymous said...

POE is a bit better than OKH but not by a great deal. Both of the academies are FAR FAR too expensive and the schooling is not that great either. Check out Dallas Ice Jets Academy at less than half the cost. Wenatchee Wild have a good academy too.

Anonymous said...

OHA has a great gym and I think the training in this gym is good but this training is nothing you can't find even in smaller centers. However, the on ice work is average at best as is the league play. Why Canadian parents spend huge bucks, more for Americans, for this is beyond me. I think they are simply misinformed. As the last guy said the Dallas Ice Jets program is great and only about 17 grand all inclusive(no tax) including billeting! They are on the ice 2 hours Monday to Friday, do more daily off ice skills on a very nice synthetic surface rink, and have good off ice training facilities! The school the boys attend is very good and it only has about 220 students. They play in a better league than the North American Prep league that POE and OHA play in. They also play the best teams Midget in the states which are USA Hockey tier 1 AAA teams such as Honey Baked, Little Caesars etc.

The Wenatchee Wild program is good too and about 16 grand all inclusive.

Why spend over 40 grand for OHA?! It's a waste of money at best and in my opinion a total rip off.

Anonymous said...

Do your research! Don't waste time and money on OHA or POE for that matter. I have a boy that attended POE last year and I can assure you it was a total waste of money! I know a boy that attended POE 2 seasons ago and OHA last season he said both were way over priced and he wasn't happy with either. He is happy now at a US prep school in the NE states.

Do your research. Below is the best academy going and at a fair bit less than half the cost too!

http://www.icejets.com/

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=566526

Anonymous said...

I talked to Ryan Gropp and he said the program isn't much better than what he did last year in Kamloops on his bantam AAA team. It's 40 grand plus and more like 50 plus for Americans, but for Gropp it's FREE! He's there cause it's free and because he's the Penticton Vee's 16 year old for next year and has already played games with them.

There are way way cheaper development options that keep your son at home and cost way less.

If you are in the Okanagan put your kid in the Okanagan Mission Secondary "Advanced Hockey Canada Skills Academy", for rep players only, for less than 2 grand! It's good!

As far as academies go the fellow that mentioned the Dallas and Wenatchee programs is 100% spot on right.

Anonymous said...

Hi i have played at OHA before not long ago. the season ended the days started to become long the same thing every day we go to the gym after school for maybe 40 mins a day and thats enough time to maybe do 2 work outs and then they send you outside, to do field which is absolutely useless to the development of us players. The off season is time to get bigger stronger and faster which is weight lifting, not going outside in +25 heat and sweat off all your gained weight over the past week. The school is great but they could honestly care less how you do once the season is over. I just recently attended the Edge academy try out WHICH WAS FREE if you can believe that and i got an exit interview right after the final game on sunday at OHA there "evaluation" camp in may is like 175$ and when i was a current OHA player it took weeks after to get my "exit" interview for after the camp. if your looking to send your kid to an Academy in Canada try Edge Academy in Calgary Alberta its about 12G$ per year much less then OHA they have there own private school great teams great coaches and your kid will get smarter through high school not hang around the average kids. I wish i sighed up at Edge instead of OHA from the get go and now I'm stuck in a tuff situation don't make my mistake do your research and most importantly don't waste your money. I did hope to play on the OHA prep team the year after because that team is decent and they get good exposure for Jr.A teams to look at those players. OHA is good for one year but no more.