There's a high probability that Tanner Kaspick will hear his name called when the 2016 NHL Draft takes place in Buffalo on June 24-25. The Brandon product was #79 among North American skaters in the final rankings by the NHL Central Scouting Service, which would probably make him a 6th or 7th round possibility. Like most players his age in the Western Hockey League, Kaspick dreams of a professional career. But he also knows the importance of having a backup plan, which is why he takes is schooling so seriously. Earlier this month, Kaspick was named the Eastern Conference nominee for the Western Hockey League's Scholastic Player of the Year Award.  "I think it's always been something that I've had a high priority for.  Growing up, I've always done well in school so I've always taken a lot of pride in my work," said Kaspick recently, "Playing with the Wheat Kings, I really didn't change that focus.  I just thought that when I have time to do the work, I just wanted to do my best and, fortunately, I've got good results throughout high school." Kaspick completed his first semester of Grade 12 this year with a remarkable 96% average, and has since upped his average to 98% in the second semester including a 100% grade in Chemistry 12. He's completed three advanced placement courses and is described by his teachers as a focused student. Unlike his high school-aged teammates on the Wheat Kings, who attend Crocus Plains high school, Kaspick has remained at Vincent Massey high school since joining the Wheat Kings.  Kaspick attends two classes every morning right now, but that is when he's actually in Brandon.  When on the road with the Wheat Kings, the challenge is a little different.  "I've been fortunate enough to have great teachers and everyone who's helped me out and understanding of our schedule and they're accommodating to my needs," said Kaspick, "They make it easy for me to stay caught up and they're very lenient on due dates and writing tests on different days so I'm very fortunate to have such good teachers." Kaspick says pre-Calculus was his favourite class to this point, and joked that with analytics making their way into the game of hockey that maybe it'll all merge together at some point and be something fairly useful in the future. The Daryl K. (Doc) Seaman Trophy for WHL Scholarship Player of the Year will be presented at the 2016 WHL Awards on May 4th in Calgary.  Since the trophy was introduced in 1984, five Wheat Kings have won the League Scholastic honours, including current Winnipeg Jets General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, who was chosen the 1988 recipient. Other Wheat Kings to capture the Award are Byron Penstock (1994), Sfefan Cherneski (1997), Brett Dickie (2003) and Keith Aulie (2007). Penstock went on to attend Harvard Business School while Dickie earned an engineering degree at the University of Saskatchewan.  "It's always good to check the boxes and have a Plan B," said Kaspick, "Right now, I'm focused on winning here and being a professional hockey player but if I have to fall back on school, I know I have the right courses and I know I'd be fine on that route as well."

The NHL Draft Prospect Rankings are in and Brandon Wheat King defensemen Kale Clague finished 27th in the final rankings for North American Skaters.  The smooth skating defenseman was ranked 22nd in the midterm rankings and has had an impressive second half to his season.   Clague finished the season with 43 points in 71 games and has been very effective in this year’s playoffs scoring 7 points in 8 games to date.  Wheat King forward Tanner Kaspick finished as the 79th ranked prospect after putting up 31 points in 53 games throughout the regular season.  The hard working power forward has shown a scorers touch as well so far in this year’s playoffs with 6 points in 8 games played. Other players of note. Regina Pats forward Adam Brooks hails from Winnipeg and lead the WHL in scoring with 120 points in 72 games finishing 72nd in the final rankings. Center Brett Howden from Moose Jaw was listed 22nd overall and had a strong 15/16 season.  He is from Oakbank, Manitoba and the brother of Florida Panthers Quinton Howden. Dean Stewart played defense with his hometown Portage Terriers this season and is now the 131st ranked North American Skater.  The 6’2”, 179 pound defenseman has committed to the University of Nebraska-Omaha for the 17/18 season. Brandon native and former AAA Midget Wheat King, Jordan Stallard finished 65th overall with a midterm rank of 84.  He just concluded his second full season with the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen. David Quenneville brother of Wheat King forward finished 144th in the rankings. Ryan Lingren, a onetime Wheat King bantam draft pick was listed 49th.  The defenseman is committed to the University of Minnesota for 16/17. http://www.nhl.com/ice/draftprospectbrowse.htm?cat=1&sort=finalRank&year=2016

1.Improve spiking power by focusing on the scapula You've probably heard the expression, "It would be like trying to shoot a cannon out of a canoe." To hit volleyball really hard, you need to have a strong base. The base for "shoulder joint strength" is the scapula stabilizers. Many athletes make the mistake of focusing solely on improving strength of rotator cuff muscles. Improving rotator cuff strength can help, but the base for shoulder joint function is the scapula. A strong rotator cuff with weak scapula stabilizers is like trying to, "shoot a cannon from a canoe". Exercises that work the scapula stabilizers might appear nonfunctional, but it's these areas are critical to long-term health of the shoulder joint. The bottom line is that a stable shoulder complex will make for a healthy shoulder complex. When working out at the gym it is very important to always get your scapula in a set position of “back and down”.  This is a motor pattern that you should also practice in daily life.  It will then become a habit.  It is involved in good posture and as such you must stand as tall as possible with shoulders back and neck long.  As a tall girl,  it will often mean that you will be taller than some boys in school.  As a good female volleyball player, who cares if you are taller than a boy!! 2. Train Movement, Not Muscles When you approach to hit a volleyball, it's important that you have the right muscles firing at the right times. Core activation exercises and other movement exercises can help improve "energy leaks". An energy leak occurs when all the energy to perform a certain movement doesn't go specifically into that movement. Think of all the muscles and joints in your body working together as a "chain" of muscles and joints. The big picture goal is for the body to be trained as a single unit. You want the movement of your muscles to be efficient. Just think about when you take an approach to hit a volleyball. As you take your steps and plant to jump, energy is transferred from the ground up. You apply force with the feet against the ground extending your hips, knees, and ankles. This is a multi-joint movement where efficiency is key to maximum jumping and hitting power. It's no coincidence that great leapers can bang the ball really
hard. They have a great ability to transfer energy from a powerful approach to a powerful spike. Also, muscular balance is important for the chain to work efficiently. For example, pushing exercises work the front side of your body. Pulling exercises work the back side of your body. If you were to workout for months or years using solely pushing movements without any pulling movements, you'll likely create muscular imbalances between the opposing muscle groups.  This often can be the cause of repetitive strain-type injuries such as rotator cuff tendinitis. During your workout, when you do 20 crunches, are you also doing 20 back extensions to counterbalance? Many athletes make the mistake of going to the gym and only doing pushing type movements (bench press, overhead presses, etc). Be sure to include pulling movements such as rows and deadlifts to keep your training balanced. A balanced strength program will help keep your movement efficient which has a big impact on how hard you can spike a volleyball. 3. Explosive Exercises for Spiking Here are 2 explosive exercises for volleyball hitting power... A. Two hand medicine ball overhead slam B. One hand medicine ball overhead slam The one hand overhead slam is basically the same except you perform a slower, more controlled movement. There isn't any jumping like the two hand slam. With the one hand slam, you just bring the medicine ball around and throw it into the ground. You've likely seen many volleyball players warm up by throwing volleyballs into the ground in the same manner. 4.  Contact Training Being a strong, powerful efficient athlete is useless if you haven’t developed skills for spiking. To hit the ball hard, it’s important to develop a good solid contact with the ball that allows you to transfer your body weight through the ball.  You can only transfer your body weight through by having superior core strength in abdominals, hips and back muscles. To practice the contact you should take all opportunities when using wall hits as a way to focus on contacting the ball high with your arm extended.  Hit the ball with topspin down and focus on getting your elbow as straight up as possible before spiking.  Concentrate on elbow up and elbow to wrist contact. Think  Elbow up and straight…elbow to wrist. 5. Learn good spike approach footwork The next step is to learn a spike approach. You don't want to start taking an approach and hit any volleyballs yet. First, focus on the right steps and upper body movement. Good technique for approaching gets you in the best position for attacking the ball. The better your approach is, the harder you can potentially hit the ball. As such, simply repetitively practicing your approach in front of a mirror and pretend to spike can help develop the motor pattern.  Focus on being up high with arm long and staying solidly on center both on take-off and on land. Being centered on landing is what helps protect knees and ankles. 6.  Speed Ultimately it is most important develop speed.  This is called plyometrics.  However it is important to prepare all tendons for plyometrics or you can develop a tendinitis.  This means that the plyometrics should be saved for a few months down the road.

Never give up, never surrender. The Winnipeg Jets fell behind the Los Angeles Kings, 3-0 on Saturday night. After a disappointing season, a season in which the Jets failed to earn an invitation to the Stanley Cup dance, they might have been forgiven if they’d just folded their tent. But there was no quit in them. Blake Wheeler scored the tying goal and Mark Scheifele notched the winner in the shootout as the Jets came from three down to beat the Kings 4-3. With the win, the Jets finished the 2015-16 season with four straight victories. It was the first time in the history of the franchise – whether the franchise was in Atlanta or Winnipeg – that the Jets had won in L.A. The Jets completed the season with a record of 35-39-8, 11th in the West, ahead of Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton. For the Jets, it was a heck of a way to finish a bad year. After being outshot 13-7 in the first period, the Jets outshot the Kings 31-29 overall (24-16 in the final 40 minutes and overtime). Playing without six regular veterans --  again -- the Jets not only hung in there, they outplayed a team that could have wrapped up the Pacific Division at home with a win. As it is, Anaheim can now overtake L.A. with a victory in Washington on Sunday. The Kings jumped on the Jets early, outshot Winnipeg 8-1 through the first 10 minutes of the game and built a 3-0 lead before the 10-minute mark of the second period. Tyker Toffoli scored his 31st of the season at 9:18 of the first period and then Tanner Pearson scored his 15th to make it 2-0 at 13:29. Andy Andreoff beat Ondrej Pavelec for his eighth of the season at 6:05 of the second period and the Kings looked as if they were about to make it a rout. But the Jets woke up. They got a goal from Andrew Copp, his sixth of the year, at 17:06 of the second period and then, just a little more than two minutes later, got another, as Nikolaj Ehlers took a brilliant pass from Blake Wheeler and ripped it past Jonathan Quick to make it 3-2 after 40 minutes. With the assist, Wheeler extended his point-scoring streak to 11 games. In the third period, Wheeler scored his 26th of the year at 3:21 and the Jets had come all the way back to tie the game. Mark Scheifele picked up an assist and kept his scoring streak alive at 10 games. Wheeler finished the season as the Jets leading scorer with 26 goals and 78 points. Scheifele, who is just 23, was second with 29 goals and 61 points. Pavelec, who wasn’t originally scheduled to start on Saturday night, finished the season with a record of 13-13-4 with one shutout, a goals against average of 2.78 (41st in the NHL) and a save percentage of just .904 (44th in the NHL). One can’t help but think that the 28-year-old veteran is going to take a back seat to 22-year-old Connor Hellebuyck next season. Fact is, as outstanding as he was on Saturday, it might be time for a bigger change than that. In overtime on Saturday, the Jets had a power play and managed only two shots at Quick while Pavelec had to make two tremendous saves. Meanwhile, at the very end of the OT, Quick stoned Ben Chiarot with what appeared to be the winner at the buzzer. It might have been the save of the year. It was an exceptional hockey game, especially when one considers that the Jets had nothing to play for. They’ve been out of the playoffs for months and have played for weeks with injuries to what most observers thought were key players. However, youngsters like Scheifele, Ehlers, Petan, Copp, Adam Lowry, Alexander Burmistrov, Marko Dano, Julian Melchiori and Brendan Tanev stepped in and stepped up. At some point, the Jets have to move out that old Atlanta core and in the final four games of the season they demonstrated that now (OK, at the draft) might be a good time to make some moves. Since the team arrived in Winnipeg from Atlanta in 2011, it has made the playoffs once and never won a game. The five-year plan is a dumpster fire, but that doesn’t mean that the players GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and his staff have drafted can’t have an impact next year. After all, they finished the season with four straight wins and three straight road wins – against three good teams in California. That ain’t bad.  The Jets flew home right after the game on Saturday and will start clearing out their lockers on Sunday. For some, it might be the last time they clean out a locker at MTS Centre. That might be a good thing.

A pair of local hockey prospects, Clarke Caswell and Cole Slobodian, have been named to the roster of the Winnipeg Jr Jets, a team comprised of the best 9 and 10 year old hockey players in the province. The team is selected annually to represent Manitoba in one of the Country's most prestigious summer hockey tournaments, The Brick Super Novice Invitational Hockey Tournament. The tournament is held annually in Edmonton and this year it will feature the top players born in 2006 from all over North America. They are also scheduled to play tournaments in the AAA Super Series in Toronto and the North American Hockey Classic based out of Winnipeg. Many players who have played in the tournament have gone on to NHL careers including the likes of Johnny Guadreau, Tyler Sequin, Dougie Hamilton and PK Subban. http://www.brickhockey.pointstreaksites.com/view/brickinvitational