Volume: 2 Edition (11)
Posted: Monday, December 23rd, 2013
“If we can make things better,
how cool is that!”
News: “Transnational Lacrosse Conference”
The lacrosse world is coming to Nova Scotia’s doorstep October 2nd-4th,
2014. The first call for papers has gone out to the world’s academic and
lacrosse practitioner community to present at next October’s Transnational
Lacrosse Conference to be held at Saint Mary’s University. Accompanying this
event will be a number of opportunities for the lacrosse community and Nova
Scotians at large to participate in the culture and game of lacrosse. See the
attached PDF for more details or the “laxcoachns” blog.
News: “What’s Up?”
Are we thinking of lacrosse yet?
Did you know that MMLL club registration is about a month away and
Exhibition Park camps will start as soon as December 28th?
Yes, the lacrosse season is just around the corner, despite all that
wintery weather and look what’s going on across Canada:
The pros are ready to go. This Saturday, the 28th, the first
NLL league games will be played and you should be able to watch at least one of
them live on the Internet on The Lacrosse Network.
Out west, BC has just finished up its call for Provincial Head Coach
applications and Alberta’s “Player Identification Camp” notice has already gone
up for next April’s event: The second annual camp for novice age group players
who are interested in representing Alberta at the 2015 Peewee Nationals. Now
there’s some forward thinking.
More centrally, the Whitby Minor Lacrosse Association’s coach
application deadline was December 15th and will run interviews in
late December. On the provincial side, Team Ontario head coaches have until
January 31st to get their applications in for February interviews.
The road to the Founders Cup is a long one and a number of Ontario Jr. B teams
are already practicing.
So what’s up in Nova Scotia? Well, provincial head coaches have been selected:
Susan Batchilder, bantam girls; Craig Moore, midget girls; Julie Finck, Junior
girls; Darrell Sampson, peewee boys; Mike Smeltzer, bantam boys; Ross Mackay,
midget boys; Mark Anderson, Junior boys; Mitch Hannigan, U16 and Brendon
Smithson, U19. And the first Pre-season Camps start December 28th
for the girls and Exhibition Park dates have been set for January 4th
and February 15th (For more details, go to LNSS’s website).
On the box scene, do check with local MMLL clubs as many are running
winter gym sessions and details can be found on their websites. For senior and
masters players, Exhibition Park is again home to the winter program and the
action has already started each Wednesday and will continue on until April.
So coaches, are you going to be ready for the 2014 season?
Technical Director’s “My 2 Cents”
Big month for the learning curve! Provincial head
coaches were invited to a special Sport Nova Scotia seminar featuring head
practitioners in the field of nutrition, sports psychology and strength and
conditioning. From that session several key points jumped out for the up-coming
season.
As coaches, we tend to cover the bases in
regards to dealing with the performance elements of the game like the physical,
technical and tactical points, but how about the mental? As Darren
Kruisselbrink showed, “at the highest performance levels, it is mental
preparation that can make the difference”. Mentally, players often get
off-track during a game when their minds think about the past (what’s happened)
or the future (what might happen) while their bodies are still in the present.
At good reset method Darren suggested was the use of breathing techniques to
calm and reset focus. Simply have players take a bring breath in, while drawing
their shoulders up to their ears, then have them relax their shoulders and
exhale.
On the nutrition front, Angela Dufour’s focus
was on supplements, the good, the bad and the ugly (The latter of which you can
find on the anti-doping website). A key take-home message was, do you know what
your players are consuming? Are they taking supplements that are appropriate for
their age-group? And who is recommending or guiding what they take?
On the fitness and conditioning side, Scott Willgress’
talking point was planning for recovery: “Training bad, recovery good”. In
essence, a player’s fitness declines during training and advances during
recovery periods: To a point where it will surpass the previous baseline
fitness level if sufficient recovery is provided.
Plotting out fitness and training regimes with
regular season games and playoff/National schedules will help planning recovery
periods, but Scott also stressed the use of fatigue monitoring tests and
recovery techniques. In regards to monitoring players, something as simple as
jump tests and/or a 10m dash can indicate whether an athlete’s performance is faltering.
On the recovery side, hydrotherapy (i.e. sitting in a tub or bucket of cool
water 12-15oC) is an excellent post-game recovery practice, particularly during
multi-game events like Nationals.
Caches, I hope you have a great holiday and
are refreshed and raring to go, as by the time of the next newsletter, we’ll be
well into the build-up of the 2014 season.
News: “Next Month”
Keep track of up-coming events on LNSS’s
website newslider and calendar.
- Pre-Season Camps, Starting Dec. 28th, See LNSS website
- Senior Winter Lacrosse, January 8th, Facebook, “Maritime Senior Mens’ Lacrosse”
- Masters Winter Lacrosse, January 8th, Facebook, “Maritime Masters Lacrosse”
- Prov Head Coach Meeting, January 7th, Sport NS, 7-9pm
“Players should expect the best - We can
deliver”
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