Beijing is Hot and Smoggy. I could never imagine how bad it was during the Olympics when they always made such a big deal about it. Well it’s unimaginable. Everyday is like Edmonton down wind from the worst northern forest fires, then just add +35 and 90 plus % humidity.

Day 1 of camp was such a blast, we were pumped up, and the kids and parents were excited to have us out there. To add to the fun there was also an opening ceremony done for the rink in the middle of camp, they do everything big here that’s for sure.  The rink we are in is actually in a mall, West Edmonton Mall style.  

In addition to the on ice sessions, the kids are put through some Canadian style dryland training and the parents take in seminars by the coaches on things such as the minor hockey system, Collegiate hockey, player development and physical and nutritional education.

Hockey players and parents are the same anywhere. It was funny to see parents in Beijing come to ice level following our skills testing portion grabbing our clip boards from the edge of the boards to compare times of their young players. Parents also ask how old our kids are that are out there demonstrating drills so they can compare their 5 to 7 year olds with our 8 to 9 year olds. On that note, I should say I was very impressed right away when I saw the ability of these young players especially their level of skating. It will be a lot of fun these 2 weeks watching them develop even further and getting to spend time with them and their parents talking hockey. We are in such a different place yet inside that rink it feels like we could still be in any Canadian hockey hotbed. Kevin.