Hockey players get a dose of boxing
Photos by JOSH MCDONALD Silver Valley Boxing Club coach Rick Welliver stands with the kids from the Edge Boss Hockey Camp at the Wallace Civic Auditorium. The campers are in Wallace for three weeks as part of a conditioning camp.
Coach Welliver demonstrates proper form during a shadow boxing session.
Campers work on power punching with the heavy bags during a boxing session.
As head coach of both the Spokane and the Silver Valley Boxing Club, local boxing guru, Rick Welliver, gets the opportunity to work with a lot of local regional youth.
Over the next few weeks though, Welliver will have the opportunity to work with kids from our neighbors to the North who have come down to Wallace as part of a three-week intensive ice hockey training camp.
Put on by former Spokane Chiefs player, Patrick Seeley, the experienced hockey coach has brought his camp to the area for the because of it several opportunities for physical conditioning.
Each morning begins with the kids waking up at the City Limits RV Park at the base of 9-Mile Road, then they have 45 minutes to ride to the top of Dobson Pass.
Following that grueling ride, the kids will have breakfast before breaking off for different dryland (hockey jargon for practice off-ice) conditioning stations, one of them being a stop at the Wallace Civic Auditorium for a one-hour boxing workout with Welliver.
“These kids come in and they work hard without complaining,” Welliver said.
“These are the kind of kids you want to have as neighbors, they are polite, they are grateful for your time, they are awesome to coach.”
The workouts with Welliver include teaching proper technique by having kids shadow box, hit punching bags, and run punching drills.
Speaking of neighbors, or more aptly “neighbours,” Welliver has a fairly high profile group of athletes that he is working with.
Among the camp goers, four are recent draft picks by teams in the Canadian Hockey League.
One of which was the number four overall pick, Jake Neighbours, who was selected by the Edmonton Oil Kings.
Another two players were selected by the slightly more local Everett Silvertips.
Campers range in age and sex, as both boys and girls of all ages mainly from Alberta, Canada and Colorado push themselves physically each day.
“It’s about getting the kids out of their comfort zone and pushing them,” Seeley said. “We always hear about how today’s kids are lazy and don’t work hard, but who is pushing them to work hard? That is what we try to do here. And the kids seem to really respond to it.”
In addition to these rigorous workouts, Seeley had the camp do several other bike rides across the area and takes to the Coeur d’Alene every weekend to skate for on-ice training. Seeley said the other than the workout opportunities that this area provides, he brings his camp here because of the scenery and the people.