Every year, thousands of young Canadians are faced with a difficult choice: Is pursuing their hockey dream worth potentially giving short shrift to their education?
A new school opening this fall in Kitchener hopes to change that by offering budding hockey stars a chance to receive top-notch on-ice, off-ice and classroom instruction, all under the same roof.
Come September, the Victus Academy operation in the Sportsworld Arena will be giving boys and girls from Grade 7 to Grade 12 – up to 15 of them per grade – education in the ways of hockey, as well as the Ontario curriculum.
“Our students will be able to graduate and get all the courses necessary to go to any universities in Canada, the United States or the world,” said Fred Gore, the school’s director of education.
“Hockey will get them noticed, but their academics will get them in.”
Gore knows a thing or two about running private schools in Ontario. He helped found two others in Kitchener – Scholars’ Hall and St. Jude’s.
He says his goal is for everyone who graduates from Victus to receive academic scholarships to post-secondary institutions.
Similarly, the people running the hockey portion of the school are a who’s who of local hockey circles.
Strength and conditioning training is the domain of Andrew Hopf, who currently handles those responsibilities for the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack.
Among those looking after the on-ice component will be former OHL and GOJHL coach Greg Bignell – currently the bench boss of the Kitchener Dutchmen – and former Kitchener Ranger Ben Fanelli.
“Not everyone can make it … but we’re trying to give every student-athlete the best opportunity to make it,” Fanelli said in an interview.
That opportunity will include about an hour a day of on-ice instruction, and about the same amount of training.
Fanelli says the instructors will be staying on top of the latest developments in hockey coaching – and will put a special focus on having students hone their personal skills.
“Teams tend to work on plays, power play breakouts, penalty killing, and so on. To work on those individual skills is something that is missed in hockey right now,” he said.
Off the ice, Hopf says, the focus will be on developing kids’ bodies so that they can do as much as possible once they lace their skates back up.
“The question is ‘How do we get them to that next level, and how do we prepare them to be the best athletes possible?’” he said.
“Training isn’t about becoming a quote-unquote meathead in the gym. Training allows you to practice harder, practice longer and become more resilient to injury, so that you don’t miss game play.”
Victus has already hired a principal and vice-principals, but will not be adding teachers to its stable until closer to the start of the next school year.
All teachers hired for the school will be fully certified to teach in Ontario, Gore said, and tuition will be set at $15,000 per year.
School officials say some of the kids registered so far are from outside Waterloo Region, including communities like Stratford, Brantford and even Hanover – from where they’ll be driven into Kitchener every day.
