|
Anthony Micucci's School of Goaltending
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
News Articles |
|
|
|
|
Recent News Articles
The Goalie Trainer
By DAVID J. HILL
(The Sun News of Hamburg)
A Hamburg man's passion for playing hockey has expanded into a year-round business dedicated to teaching youth how to be better goaltenders.
Since 2000, Anthony Micucci has offered goalie camps, clinics and one-on-one training specializing in "European style goaltending," which focuses on "controlled butterfly," better rebound control and "power pushes" (when a goalie pushes off one leg to get across the goal crease).
Anthony Micucci's Goalie School consists of 10 instructors, including Micucci, a Frontier High School graduate who went on to play both Junior B and Junior A hockey in Deerwood, Minn. He was a member of the Junior A Deerwood Devils national championship team.
Micucci even had a short stint with the now defunct Buffalo Wings professional roller hockey team.
"After (playing with the Wings), I contemplated retirement from hockey and started focusing more on training goalies," said Micucci, whose 8-year-old son Trevor was the goalie for the Hamburg Hawks Mites Major Travel AAA team coached by Tom Kaleta, the father of Patrick Kaleta, the Lake Shore graduate drafted two years ago by the Buffalo Sabres.
Trevor soon will be playing for the Brantford, Ontario-based Regional Express 1997 Gold spring hockey team, "the most elite team you can get on in the spring," Micucci says.
Micucci said he wanted to open up a goalie training business for two key reasons.
The first was that "goaltenders never have proper training during practice," he said. "They're just looked at as targets." Secondly, Micucci simply enjoys working with children and young adults.
While there are other goaltender training schools in Western New York and Southern Ontario, Micucci says his is the only one focusing on European style goaltending.
"No one specializes in that from the Buffalo area as far up to Calgary," he said. As a point of reference, some examples of NHL goalies who epitomize this style are Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers; the Montreal Canadiens' David Aebischer; and Antero Niittymaki of the Philadelphia Flyers.
There are some recognizable high school goalies Micucci has mentored, including St. Francis Prep's Max Besch and 2005 Frontier graduate Rick Scarsella.
Perhaps the Micucci's most notable "graduate" is Brett Bennett, a phenomenal talent from Williamsville who is currently a member of the U.S. National Team Development Program and will be playing for Boston University.
Micucci has several one-week camps scheduled for the summer as well as a seven-week clinic that meets one day a week at Holiday Twin Rinks in Cheektowaga, the Amherst Pepsi Center and Leisure Rinks in Orchard Park.
The camps and clinics are designed for male and female goalies of all ages and skill levels.
For those interested in one-on-one training, Micucci will come to an ice rink nearest the goalie's house. The clinics run for six hours. Half of that time is devoted to on-ice training.
A typical clinic day begins at 8:30 a.m. with a 90 minute on-ice session, followed by classroom instruction and videos. Afterwards there's a break for lunch, then it's back to the ice for another 90 minutes.
The on-ice program works on, among other skills, glove control, five-hole work, proper angles, poke checking and mobility.
Also mixed in is 45 minutes of dryland "intense core training," where the goalies work on their strength and conditioning and also do hand-eye coordination drills and work with memory boards.
"This dryland (training) will test the student's desire to be an elite goaltender, no matter what level they play at," Micucci said.
For more information on Anthony Micucci's Goalie School
call 627-7090 or visit www.micuccigoalieschool.com.
|
Lakeshore Thunder Champions
The 97 Regional Express Gold hockey team had a chance to play their first games together at the Lakeshore Thunder Tournament in Brampton on the weekend.
It looked like a bit of a slow start on Friday against their first opponent, the Buffalo Prospects. Let's just say that the boys needed a chance to find each other on the ice. With the game tied at 3-3 after the second, parents and coaches alike were nervously nibbling their nails, wondering if this was "THE TEAM" that we were all excited about. A flood between periods allowed the coaches to speak with everyone and it seemed to work. Gold was back on the ice and they made short work of showing Buffalo who was boss. A 6-3 victory was under their belt and it was time to focus.
Saturday action began with a morning game against the Niagara Vipers, sort of. 16-1 isn't much of a game and the only Viper goal was a bit of a bad bounce off the post down our goalie's back and in the net. The Express players were on their game with crisp passes and awesome plays.
The second game of the day was against the Pro Hockey Development team that faired no better. The only thing keeping them even close was their goalie, who made many fantastic saves. However, many beautiful goals were scored in the 8-0 drubbing.
Regional Express found themselves on top of the leader board and were given a bye in the quarter finals. Next up were the Niagara 67's in the semi finals. 13-0 was the score and the 67's were sent packing. Championship game here we come.
The Toronto Red Army were enjoying similar success in the tournament and were looking forward to facing the Express in the final game. What they didn't realize was that a muscle game didn't stand a chance against speed and finesse. 97 Regional Express Gold put on a clinic despite the Red Army bench trying to manipulate the referees. Gold was on top of their game and were relentless throughout. The game ended 9-3 and the championship was pure Gold. Through some unfortunate mixups, our boys didn't get a chance to receive any hardware, but I'm sure it will be rectified.
97 Regional Express Gold players should be proud of their accomplishment. They have come together as a team faster than one would expect. Goals and assists were had by all, goaltending was superb and the defence never gave the opposition a chance to challenge. Well done!!
|
Anthony's son Trevor, plays goalie for the Regional Express Gold Hockey Team
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
News Articles |
|
|
|
