Talent not enough to make it in NHL: Gary Roberts
“You look at Steve Stamkos (shown against Canadiens), he’s a great hockey player, he’s a great baseball player, he’s a great golfer, he’s great in the gym,” Gary Roberts says. “You don’t score 60 goals in the National Hockey League unless you’re an all-around good athlete."
MONTREAL - A lot of young hockey players watched Friday night’s first round of the NHL draft with dreams that one day in the future their name will be called. It’s a dream many hockey parents also have from the first time they lace up a pair of skates for their kid.
But Gary Roberts, a veteran of 22 NHL seasons who won a Stanley Cup with the Calgary Flames in 1989, has a message for those kids and their parents: It takes a lot more than talent to make it.
Since retiring after the 2008-09 season, Roberts has become somewhat of a guru when it comes to training and nutrition for amateur and professional athletes through the Gary Roberts High Performance Centre. And he will play a key role at the NHLPA Allstate All-Canadians Mentorship Camp, slated for July 17-21 in Mississauga, Ont. The camp will bring together 42 of the top bantam-age players (born in 1997) from across the country, teaching them not only hockey skills, but also the importance and development of physical fitness, nutrition habits and mental skills.
Six of the players invited to the camp are from Quebec: goalie Callum Booth of Montreal, defenceman Jérémy Roy of Richelieu, and forwards Julien Gauthier of Montreal, Daniel Sprong of Île Bizard, Anthony Beauvillier of St. Hyacinthe and Nicolas Roy of Amos.
“These kids today, they need to be fed properly and fuelled properly,” Roberts, 46, said when I spoke with him recently. “Nutrition is the No. 1 thing I do with my guys, and it’s the one thing we’re going to enforce all week with these young athletes: eat right first. That’s the first thing you need to accomplish. If you don’t eat right, the training just goes by the wayside.”
Roberts added that the bantam level is when kids need to really get serious about hockey – both on and off the ice – if they want to succeed.
“This is the age we need to start preparing these players,” he said. “This is the time in their life when they say, ‘OK, I’m going to try and make hockey a career, or at least try to let hockey pay for my education in some form.’ This is the age these young players need to start getting this information to prepare them for whether it’s playing major-junior hockey or playing Junior A hockey or going to college. Fourteen, 15 years old, if you’re not doing this stuff – off the ice I’m talking about, when it comes to your lifestyle choices and your nutrition and your respect for the game – you’re not going to make it.”
But Roberts added that healthy eating for hockey players – and children in general – should start at a much earlier age.
“My biggest beef is hockey arena cafeterias,” he said. “They haven’t changed since I played minor hockey 40 years ago. I see kids eating pizza, Gatorade, and hotdogs and chips. That’s post-game meals for kids at hockey arenas. And they might play three games that day because they’re in a tournament.”
I asked Roberts what young hockey players should be eating.
“A garden salad with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar,” he said as a starter. “That’s the dressing … it’s not Ranch or Thousand Islands of French. It’s extra-virgin olive oil with balsamic vinegar, with some seeds on it. People don’t realize how good seeds are for you, whether it’s pumpkin seeds of hemp seeds or sunflower seeds. That’s a great salad for kids … it’s substance. Kids need substance. And then a chicken breast with some sweet potato and broccoli is a great meal. It’s got your protein, it’s got your long-lasting carbohydrates in the sweet potato. And even put some real butter on that, and you’ve got an ultimate pregame or post-game meal.”
For snacks, Roberts suggests Greek yogurt with berries and flax seed, raw vegetables with humus, raw almonds (if there are no nut allergies) and an apple, trail mix or a tuna wrap.
“I say to guys: ‘Worst-case scenario put a chocolate milk and a couple of bananas in your hockey bag so when you’re done playing you’ve got something to put in your body right away,’” Roberts said. “It’s about preparation. That’s what this whole thing is about. If you prepare properly you’ll succeed.”
I also asked Roberts what he thinks about kids with NHL dreams playing hockey 12 months a year.
“I’m totally against it,” he said. “My whole belief is that you play hockey all winter … it’s a physical sport. In the summertime you need to get outside, enjoy some sunshine, get out of the hockey arena. Eight weeks minimum of off-ice training depending on when your season ends. Go do something else in the summer.
“You look at Steve Stamkos, he’s a great hockey player, he’s a great baseball player, he’s a great golfer, he’s great in the gym,” Roberts added. “You don’t score 60 goals in the National Hockey League unless you’re an all-around good athlete. So become a good athlete first, don’t focus so much on one sport or one activity. I think it’s totally wrong that parents think they’re going to lose the edge if (their kids) don’t go out on the ice 12 months a year. What’s going to happen is your child is going to be less motivated in September to put his skates on because he did it all summer.”
Stamkos has become the poster boy for Roberts’s program, working hard with the former NHLer when it comes to fitness and nutrition.
“The biggest thing for Steve was understanding how to lift weights properly ... that was No. 1,” Roberts said. “Understanding that to get stronger you follow tempo ... that’s what people don’t understand when they lift weights. Understanding exactly what we were trying to accomplish with his weightlifting instead of just working out. And then the nutrition … not eating near enough food. I refined his eating and introduced him to the proper training.
“Obviously, he came to me with lots of skill,” Roberts added. “ I didn’t give him his shot.”
But it takes more than just a big shot to make the NHL.
scowan@montrealgazette.com
Twitter: @StuCowan1
To learn more about the All-Canadians Mentorship Camp, including fitness and nutrition tips, go to the website at allcanadians.com
Ken Dryden pays tribute to The Gazette’s Red Fisher on his retirement. Read more on Stu Cowan’s blog at montrealgazette.com/stuonsports
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Talent+enough+make+Gary+Roberts/6827945/story.html#ixzz1yeMQJtPN
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Read what Gary Roberts Has to say...The Tiger Paw Message!!!!!
Talent not enough to make it in NHL: Gary Roberts
“You look at Steve Stamkos (shown against Canadiens), he’s a great hockey player, he’s a great baseball player, he’s a great golfer, he’s great in the gym,” Gary Roberts says. “You don’t score 60 goals in the National Hockey League unless you’re an all-around good athlete."
MONTREAL - A lot of young hockey players watched Friday night’s first round of the NHL draft with dreams that one day in the future their name will be called. It’s a dream many hockey parents also have from the first time they lace up a pair of skates for their kid.
But Gary Roberts, a veteran of 22 NHL seasons who won a Stanley Cup with the Calgary Flames in 1989, has a message for those kids and their parents: It takes a lot more than talent to make it.
Since retiring after the 2008-09 season, Roberts has become somewhat of a guru when it comes to training and nutrition for amateur and professional athletes through the Gary Roberts High Performance Centre. And he will play a key role at the NHLPA Allstate All-Canadians Mentorship Camp, slated for July 17-21 in Mississauga, Ont. The camp will bring together 42 of the top bantam-age players (born in 1997) from across the country, teaching them not only hockey skills, but also the importance and development of physical fitness, nutrition habits and mental skills.
Six of the players invited to the camp are from Quebec: goalie Callum Booth of Montreal, defenceman Jérémy Roy of Richelieu, and forwards Julien Gauthier of Montreal, Daniel Sprong of Île Bizard, Anthony Beauvillier of St. Hyacinthe and Nicolas Roy of Amos.
“These kids today, they need to be fed properly and fuelled properly,” Roberts, 46, said when I spoke with him recently. “Nutrition is the No. 1 thing I do with my guys, and it’s the one thing we’re going to enforce all week with these young athletes: eat right first. That’s the first thing you need to accomplish. If you don’t eat right, the training just goes by the wayside.”
Roberts added that the bantam level is when kids need to really get serious about hockey – both on and off the ice – if they want to succeed.
“This is the age we need to start preparing these players,” he said. “This is the time in their life when they say, ‘OK, I’m going to try and make hockey a career, or at least try to let hockey pay for my education in some form.’ This is the age these young players need to start getting this information to prepare them for whether it’s playing major-junior hockey or playing Junior A hockey or going to college. Fourteen, 15 years old, if you’re not doing this stuff – off the ice I’m talking about, when it comes to your lifestyle choices and your nutrition and your respect for the game – you’re not going to make it.”
But Roberts added that healthy eating for hockey players – and children in general – should start at a much earlier age.
“My biggest beef is hockey arena cafeterias,” he said. “They haven’t changed since I played minor hockey 40 years ago. I see kids eating pizza, Gatorade, and hotdogs and chips. That’s post-game meals for kids at hockey arenas. And they might play three games that day because they’re in a tournament.”
I asked Roberts what young hockey players should be eating.
“A garden salad with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar,” he said as a starter. “That’s the dressing … it’s not Ranch or Thousand Islands of French. It’s extra-virgin olive oil with balsamic vinegar, with some seeds on it. People don’t realize how good seeds are for you, whether it’s pumpkin seeds of hemp seeds or sunflower seeds. That’s a great salad for kids … it’s substance. Kids need substance. And then a chicken breast with some sweet potato and broccoli is a great meal. It’s got your protein, it’s got your long-lasting carbohydrates in the sweet potato. And even put some real butter on that, and you’ve got an ultimate pregame or post-game meal.”
For snacks, Roberts suggests Greek yogurt with berries and flax seed, raw vegetables with humus, raw almonds (if there are no nut allergies) and an apple, trail mix or a tuna wrap.
“I say to guys: ‘Worst-case scenario put a chocolate milk and a couple of bananas in your hockey bag so when you’re done playing you’ve got something to put in your body right away,’” Roberts said. “It’s about preparation. That’s what this whole thing is about. If you prepare properly you’ll succeed.”
I also asked Roberts what he thinks about kids with NHL dreams playing hockey 12 months a year.
“I’m totally against it,” he said. “My whole belief is that you play hockey all winter … it’s a physical sport. In the summertime you need to get outside, enjoy some sunshine, get out of the hockey arena. Eight weeks minimum of off-ice training depending on when your season ends. Go do something else in the summer.
“You look at Steve Stamkos, he’s a great hockey player, he’s a great baseball player, he’s a great golfer, he’s great in the gym,” Roberts added. “You don’t score 60 goals in the National Hockey League unless you’re an all-around good athlete. So become a good athlete first, don’t focus so much on one sport or one activity. I think it’s totally wrong that parents think they’re going to lose the edge if (their kids) don’t go out on the ice 12 months a year. What’s going to happen is your child is going to be less motivated in September to put his skates on because he did it all summer.”
Stamkos has become the poster boy for Roberts’s program, working hard with the former NHLer when it comes to fitness and nutrition.
“The biggest thing for Steve was understanding how to lift weights properly ... that was No. 1,” Roberts said. “Understanding that to get stronger you follow tempo ... that’s what people don’t understand when they lift weights. Understanding exactly what we were trying to accomplish with his weightlifting instead of just working out. And then the nutrition … not eating near enough food. I refined his eating and introduced him to the proper training.
“Obviously, he came to me with lots of skill,” Roberts added. “ I didn’t give him his shot.”
But it takes more than just a big shot to make the NHL.
scowan@montrealgazette.com
Twitter: @StuCowan1
To learn more about the All-Canadians Mentorship Camp, including fitness and nutrition tips, go to the website at allcanadians.com
Ken Dryden pays tribute to The Gazette’s Red Fisher on his retirement. Read more on Stu Cowan’s blog at montrealgazette.com/stuonsports
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Talent+enough+make+Gary+Roberts/6827945/story.html#ixzz1yeMQJtPN
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