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Team Canada's Logan Pyett, left, and goaltender Steve Mason celebrate their victory over Team Russia in a Summit Series game this past August. Pyett, a native of Milestone, Sask., has moved closer to Saskatoon to take advantage of the high-tech gyms and trainers now considered an essential part of off-season training for aspiring NHLers. (CP PHOTO/Paul Chiasson)
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PARDUBICE, CZECH REPUBLIC — Rhonda and Lyle Pyett's latest investment in the hockey career of their son Logan brought them to the Czech Republic for Christmas. It's not your usual vacation, but for the Milestone, Sask., family the trip is a reward for the investment they have made in their son as he works toward employment in the National Hockey League.
Logan Pyett, a defenceman and captain of the Regina Pats, has bucked the odds. Since the inception of the Canadian junior program in 1982, most of the annual rosters have consisted of players from the city with the odd rural teenager mixed in. In fact, Pyett is the 13th teenager from small-town Saskatchewan to be included among the nation's top junior hockey players, a group that includes Wendel Clark.
Although players from rural Canada have remained a steady constant in the 26-year history of the junior program, there is a fear that a small-town player would become extinct because of the escalating cost of playing hockey and the sport becoming a year-round activity that stresses off-season conditioning.
Pyett, whose father is a farm service centre manager for Sask Wheat Pool and whose mother is a teacher, spent the first 14 years of his life in Milestone. Later, the family moved to Balgonie, population 1,384 and about 15 minutes east of Regina.
Ice time may be more available in small towns, but the cities have the high-tech gyms and trainers readily available. That's why after Pyett finished high school this summer, he packed up his belongings and moved 2½ hours away to Saskatoon to live in a rented house with brothers Logan and Shay Stevenson, two budding hockey pros.
Pyett's agent, Brad Devine, foots most of the bill for his client to live and train in the summer. Pyett, an unsigned Detroit Red Wings prospect, is in the gym five times a week and on the ice on weekends in the hopes of improving enough to get a contract.
"It's just a lot more convenient for me to be in Saskatoon," said Pyett, whose sister Paige is a member of the Canadian under-18 team. "I live at home during the season and it's nice to get away from home for a while. It's not like my parents miss me because I'm there during the season.
"Is it worth it? Sure it is. I've been to Europe now four times because I'm able to play hockey at a high level. It was a life decision and I have no regrets.
"I still find time to have fun in the summer. There still is lots of time to be 19 years old."
Canadian juniors John Tavares and Steve Stamkos, both 17, are considered the top prospects for the 2009 and 2008 NHL drafts, respectively. They also have engaged in similar summer programs that find them in the gym every day during the week.
But it's a new experience for Tavares, the Ontario Hockey League's leading scorer. The native of Oakville, Ont., also has a passion for lacrosse but gave up the summer sport this past year to concentrate on his summertime hockey conditioning.
"Lacrosse was a passion on mine that I enjoyed and gave me a break from hockey," said Tavares, whose father, Joe, is a sub-contractor installing steel decks and his mother, Barbara, keeps the books for her husband's business. "But off-ice work is just as important as things you do on the ice. That's the way I look at it.
"If you want to be the best at your job you have to make that commitment to getting better. To become a better hockey player, the work you do in the off-season allows you to become stronger, faster and quicker."
Stamkos of Unionville, Ont., has worked with a personal trainer since he was 13 and started to work out in the summer at age 12. When asked about the financial cost of his hockey, he gave thanks to his father, Chris, a sales manager, and mother, Lesley, a consultant.
"It's not cheap playing hockey these days," Stamkos said. "There's always new equipment on the market that costs more and the one-piece sticks. My parents definitely have been there for me."
But will this 12-month-a-year approach damage Canadian hockey in the long term? These off-season conditioning programs don't come cheap and the time commitment is ever increasing. Families of Canadian junior players such as Stamkos, Tavares and Pyett have altered their lives to revolve around their talented teenagers.
"I know they do," said Minnesota Wild professional scout Blair Mackasey, formerly Hockey Canada chief scout. "But it's not just hockey, it's any family that has a talented kid, whether figure skating [or a talent outside sports].
"If you want your kid to enjoy every possible opportunity to succeed, the parents and sometimes the other children have to make lifestyle adjustments. Major funds have to be distributed towards the young athlete and vacations become family trips to hockey tournaments."
Mackasey should know. Not only did he get to know the families of junior stars such as Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews and Carey Price when he worked for Hockey Canada, his two sons are sound players. B.J. Mackasey, 24, just finished four years playing for Princeton University and his younger brother David is a defenceman at Deerfield Academy prep school in Massachusetts.
The Mackaseys hail from Beaconsfield, Que., just west of Montreal and David began year-round training this past summer. That meant he went to the gym almost every day to train with a group that was led by a personal trainer. He and his dad split the cost.
"I know there is some concern among hockey people in this country about the cost of the hockey because of how expensive equipment is and all the extra training that is done," Mackasey said. "If you're a young immigrant family, how do you get started? There is the cost of equipment, registration and ice time.
"It's easy to see why soccer has become the popular choice. It's a lot cheaper to get into the game than hockey."
Training hockey players has become a big business, too. And it's not cheap. Personal trainers, gym memberships, power-skating instructors and hockey schools can add up.
A personal trainer is approximately $150 a week, if shared with other players. Ice time is a minimum $100 an hour. The range to be a member of a triple-A program ranges from $3,000 to $5,000. And then there are equipment costs, easily more than $1,000 a season. Add in travelling costs for tournaments and hockey quickly becomes an expensive venture.
Crosby is appreciative of the sacrifices made by his parents, Trina and Troy.
"It's endless, whether it's getting up early in the morning or rushing home from work to get you to a practice or cooking you a pregame meal," Crosby said yesterday. "We owe a lot to them ... I remember coming home soaking wet and cold from playing all day and drinking hot chocolate. They remember those times and they see us living our dreams [in the NHL]. It's special for them, too."
Scouts such as Mackasey and his colleagues agree on one thing: The good ones will be discovered whether the player is from a small town or large city. But the rural player has to be raised in a determined family.
Take Montreal Canadiens sensational rookie goalie Carey Price for example. When growing up in Anahim Lake, B.C., population 700 when combined with the nearby Ulkatcho First Nation, the closest team was 320 kilometres away in Williams Lake.
His father Jerry drove Price the 640-kilometre round trip three times a week for practices and games, until Jerry decided to put his pilot's licence to use and rent a Piper Cherokee for $13,000 for the rest of the season.
"It was a lawnmower with wings," Price's father said.
The summer for these guys isn't about fun and frolic, but sweat and struggle. It's quite a change from even 30 years ago. Players such as Wayne Gretzky played baseball at a high level in the summer. They didn't worry about agility and speed drills, about how much they could squat or hiring the right personal trainer.
One of Gretzky's world junior teammates from 1978, former standout goalie Tim Bernhardt of the Cornwall Royals, chuckled when he was asked what the summer regimen was like for the country's elite teenage hockey players three decades ago.
Maybe, some juniors ran a few times a week, but mostly "when we took off our skates after the last game of our season, we didn't put them back on until a week before training camp when a bunch of us would get together for some shinny," Bernhardt said.
So there wasn't even a summer camp for the Canadian junior team then?
"There was a get-together up at the Orr-Walton sports camp [in Orillia, Ont.]," Bernhardt said. "They put us on a small curling rink. We tried to have a scrimmage, but basically it was a publicity stunt."
Bernhardt, now the Dallas Stars director of scouting, can pinpoint when hockey players started to partake in some heavy lifting and vigorous workout programs in the summer: When salaries began a steep ascent in the early to mid-1990s and competition for jobs was heightened because of a European invasion.
"You have to remember that when this was an original six league, most of the players, even the stars, had summer jobs to supplement their salaries," player agent Anton Thun said. "There was no time for summer workouts.
"Hockey was more a sport than a business. Now it's big business."
Mike Ricci played for Canada twice at this tournament. He was drafted high, fourth overall, by the Philadelphia Flyers in 1990. Recently retired from the NHL, Ricci, who now works in the San Jose Sharks front office, regrets not taking his off-season more seriously in the early days of his 16-season NHL career.
"I was a natural athlete and felt I really didn't need to do that much," said Ricci, who ran track in high school and played soccer. "I did some running three times a week, some push-ups and sit-ups, but nothing like these guys put themselves through today.
"I also had some back problems in my days with the [Colorado] Avalanche. It wasn't until I was urged to get into shape in the summer that I understood the importance of a good summer-time training program.
"You have to do it now because everybody else is getting bigger and stronger."
No matter what the cost.
