JOHNSTOWN, CAMBRIA COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ Plus) — The city of Johnstown has a rich hockey history, from having parts of the move “Slap Shot,” filmed here to being crowned a Kraft Hockeyville winner.
Sheri Hudspeth wants to add to that history by starting her own hockey development company.
Thrive Hockey LLC has a low player to coach ratio to help give personalized training to players.
“That allows for like a four to one ratio where we can really break stuff down and give specialized individual attention to kids. We’re not just running them through drills really fast, we’re breaking stuff down. This is how you shoot, this is how you pass, this is how your hands are supposed to be…really getting into the mechanics of hockey and slowing stuff down for them,” said Sheri Hudspeth, director and coach of Thrive Hockey. “I believe hockey is for everyone..it’s for boys, girls, it’s for all ages it’s for adults. A lot of parents they don’t know too much about hockey but they’d like to be able to skate with their kids one day…I would like to offer adult programming in the future,” she continued.
“Ever since Planet Ice closed down we have lost a little bit of ice time per age group of kids especially with all the high schools playing, the Tomahawks have ice and there’s a lot of good programs going on but what that does is it limits the ice time for individual students. This gives the chance for students to and players to get more ice time in their season and that’s going to increase their skills along the way,” said Boston Bradley, coach at Thrive Hockey.
Practice sessions will also be unique.
“We do an on-ice component that is 30 minutes so it’s called Thrive Dynamics Stretch. We do a series of dynamic movements to start getting your body warmed up, start getting your mind prepared for hockey. The movements and stretches we do outside mimic what we do on the ice. We also work on agility training, reaction training and speed training so we do that outside first,” said Hudspeth.
“So these will light up, it’s kind of like a relay race for the kids and you can put them in different orders and have different backpedaling, side shuffling, sprints creating a competitive nature for the kids to compete against each other while also getting that dynamic stretch in,” said Bradley.
Players are then able to get an hour on the ice and Hudspeth says Thrive Hockey LLC isn’t your typical training company.
“So one of our coaches is Conner Hagins, he’s from Johnstown. He has a foundation up in Pittsburgh called Cuddles for Kids. We will be working with them going forward giving a donation from our hockey sessions to benefit his charity as well.”
Practices are $35 a session and you can find more information by emailing Hudspeth at coach@thrivehockeyclub.com or on their social media pages.