IW hit 10,000 Likes on Facebook! To thank all of our loyal supporters, we’re giving away a free hockey stick of your choice. Wait, what? Yep, the winner can choose from any stick that IW has in stock. You could choose the Bauer APX, or the Easton Mako II, or the Reebok 20K, or the CCM RBZ, or the Warrior Covert DT1 or… Any stick.

Enter the contest here: http://on.fb.me/14NrqhO

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The NHL lockout has left us all with a lot more free time than we would like. No longer the evenings and nights watching the various games or sitting in front of the computer setting the fantasy hockey lineups. Some of us spend their newly acquired time watching lesser sports or living in denial; pretending that EA Sports’ NHL 13 is the NHL season. Others of us though, are spending our extra free time conditioning and training for our own (non-locked out) season. I’d like to share a solid, hockey-specific leg/cardio workout that we did last night. This workout is best done on grass or a track. So don your apparel and head out there.

We begin with a few warm-up laps around the track to get the blood pumping. Following that, make sure to stretch out to ensure that your legs will make it all the way to the end of the work out. After you complete your stretching, set up a beginning marker and an end marker around 50 feet away. Then you run sprints from the beginning marker to the end marker. Run full speed until you reach the end marker and jog back to the beginning marker. Repeat this 10 times and then move the marker back 25 ft. Complete the full speed sprints 8 times and move it back again another 25 ft. Now begin the 100 ft. sprints for 6 repetitions. These sprints are beneficial to hockey specifically because you need to be able to sustain short bursts of speed for 30-45 seconds before going in for a line change.

Once the sprints are completed, move the end marker back to around the 75 ft. mark and hop on one leg to the marker, still jogging back, 7 times. Then switch legs and repeat with the other leg. This exercise works on balance as well as individual leg power and strength.

This next exercise we call hockey jumps because they emulate a players’ skating stride. Here’s how it goes: begin on one foot and jump side to side, moving slowly forward as you jump side to side until you reach the 50 ft marker. This video is an example of just the side to side motion.

Video:

When doing this for distance, move slightly forward with each side to side jump. Also, it helps with balance and launch to kick the leg that’s not on the ground past the leg recently planted into the ground (see picture below) Repeat this 5 times.  

Follow this exercise with frog jumps (squat jumps) to the 50 ft marker again. If done correctly, you should feel this exercise after the first couple jumps. Make sure to go all the way down so that your rear is almost touching your heels. Then surge forward in a jumping motion as far as possible forward and then repeat.

To finish the workout, do a few sets of lunges to both cool down and keep the legs working. I can tell you right now that this set of exercises works well as I can’t really walk correctly right now… But the pain is temporary and increases your game readiness and performance. Good luck in your hockey and exercise endeavors until (and hopefully continuing even) when the lockout ends!

Here we go again with another sad day for hockey fans. The 2012 NHL lockout has sure been unfortunate for players and fans alike with limited information as to if or when the season will start.  It’s been 8 years since the last 2004-05 NHL lockouts that canceled all of the games for the season and forced the NHL All Star game to be played in non-Winter Olympic years. Other recent lockouts happened during the 1992 NHL strike postponing 30 games and the 1994-95 NHL lockout with canceled a lot of the games shortening the season to 48 games without inter-conference games.

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck

Why is this happening? Well, the short answer is of course money. With many of the teams in the NHL lacking in finances and many others just breaking even, a majority of the revenues comes from the top ten franchises. The collective bargaining of five items that need resolution before the season starts are: Player’s Share, Salary cap “Floor”, Guaranteed Contract, Escrow Payment, and Revenue Sharing.

During the 2005 NHL lockout negotiations a salary cap was established ensuring a salary cap floor. A percentage of the NHL revenues were agreed upon and the player’s share began at 54% in 2005. As leagues revenues increased over the years the percentage has now reached an all time high for the 2010-11 season at 57%. The NHL feels that player’s share is too high and compared to other professional sporting franchises the percentage is high.

Tom Hanson/AP file photo

The Salary Cap “Floor” is the minimum season payroll for any NHL team, $16 million below the salary cap. Teams that are not making a profit would like an option of lower payrolls so they don’t lose even more money. The league might lower the salary floor in relation to the cap or get rid of the floor.

The NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement established in 2005, a player is guaranteed every dollar of a signed contract unless his team buys him out. Buyouts can be pricey as a team is required to pay two-thirds of the remaining contract value and takes on a long-term salary cap hit. Player contracts can be as long as 15 years with huge price tags as well as salary cap issues. The league might push for non-guaranteed contracts or term limits of 10 years or less.

The Escrow payment ensures every team and player receives the correct amount at the end of the season. During the 2010-11 season the NHL withheld 12.5% of a player’s salary in an escrow account and was paid at the end of the season with the rest of the revenues earned throughout the season. The problem is that players are concerned that league operated teams such as the Phoenix Coyotes drags down the overall revenues leaving less escrow money. Players don’t like the idea of losing revenue to teams that can’t support themselves.

AP Photo/The News & Observer, Ethan Hyman

Revenue sharing in the NHL is designed to level out every team financially. Money earned by high revenue franchises is distributed to low revenue franchises ensuring an even financial playing field. The current system is not considered to be overly generous but the high revenue teams are reluctant to give away more money to the teams in need. Since NHL revenues have increased substantially does it make sense that wealthy franchises share with teams that are losing money during the season? Players will most likely suggest increased revenue sharing as a sound solution but we will have to wait and see.

Either way the owners and the players need to come to an agreement and stop this nonsense because we all suffer in the end.

After our disappointing early exit from the Division 1 age group at NARCh (See previous post), we returned two days later for the Men’s Platinum division. The roster remained the same except for the loss of one player and the addition of another former IW employee Michael Chaloupka. Our first game faced us off against a team called NCR and proved that the two days off did not help as we lost 6-4. The rest of our games had us playing against International teams: The Revision Predators (Alberta, Canada), La Escuela De Hockey (Colombia, South America) and Mission-Bauer France (France, Obviously).

In our second game against the Revision Predators, we really stepped up our game and took them down 10-2. Ryan Burrows led the team with 5 goals, followed by IW former employee Brian Costello with 4 points (1 goal, 3 assists) and IW’s Chris Kumata with 4 points (3 goals, 1 assist). In the lead up to the third game, we didn’t know how to feel about the upcoming game. Their name was La Escuela de Hockey which translates to The School of Hockey or The Hockey School which, I’m not going to lie, is kind of intimidating. Also, they beat the team that we lost to, yet lost to the team that we beat. Anyways, we played against the Colombians and soundly put them away 7-1.

The fourth game against Mission-Bauer France went as well as the last two games. They didn’t put up much of a struggle and gave up early  as we beat them 9-1. The three immense victories put us in 3rd seed going into the playoffs facing off against the 6th seed, the LA Clippers (nope, not the basketball team). The next morning, we faced off against them and we exchanged a few goals until we put up a two goal lead (4-2) and they pulled their goalie with a minute left. A little tussle broke out in front of the net after some pushing and shoving with Mike Chaloupka out in front of the net. The only result was that the other player got tossed out of the game and the resulting power play helped us finish them off.

Our next game was the semifinal. Our previous games proved to us that this was our division and we should be able to easily finish the next two games and take home the trophy. We then faced off against Pama Platinum… The game could be summarized as a very close game, but most definitely ours… until five minutes left. We were up 3-1 and got scored on to make it a 3-2 game. With 1 minute remaining they pulled their goalie and began their 5 on 4 play. We held them off for 45 seconds and we had the puck heading over the half-court line. We then dumped it on net, narrowly missing and their defenseman went and retrieved the puck. He looked at the scoreboard and saw that it showed a little under 2 seconds left. So, from the low dots he fired the puck on net and somehow through screens and bounces, found it’s way into the back of the net… With 0.3 seconds left… Unbelievable…

2 minutes into overtime, they receive a breakaway through a lapse in defense and score ending our final run… We did receive bronze medals though for 3rd place. We’ll be back next year. Also, congratulations to Brian Costello who received the Top Scorer Award for a little over a 2.2 PPG average!

Stay tuned for our a preview of the new Alkali equipment!

Hey guys! So this week Erik (the goalie guy) and I are at the North American Roller Hockey Championships (NARCh) in San Jose and thought I’d keep you updated of the happenings here. To start with, we’re playing for a team called Cal Beach, which is a combination of two college teams with some other players thrown in the mix. Also on our team is former IW employee Brian Costello. We’re in two divisions: Men’s Platinum & Division 1 (24 & Under) and we began play for Division 1 on Monday, July 23.

Personally, the tournament did not get off to a great start because of what happened the night before. So I was in my hometown of Davis, which is 5 hours north of where I currently live/where IW is located. I was in my buddy’s garage (he had the floor tiled with sport court) shooting on the net he had set up in there. We had an intense game of HORSE going on and I called out that I would shoot a slapshot off where the right post and the crossbar meet and then go in. When I wound up, I had a bad feeling about the shot but I continued anyways. My Bauer TotalOne LE snapped…  Stunned and in disbelief, I held my broken stick thinking of what to do. Our first game was literally 12 hours away and I had sold my backup stick (Bauer APX) last month to another one of my friends. My current backup stick is a Bauer APX SE shaft with an outdoor blade so I ruled that one out for now. Instinctively, I called Erik to see if he was still in San Luis Obispo (IW’s home) to grab me a stick from IW before he took off, but of course he was already in San Jose (3 hours north of San Luis Obispo). So long story short, I called up our customer service at IW and ordered a stick and had it shipped to a friend living in San Jose. I hoped that it would arrive Tuesday, but we’ll see. In the meantime, I used my friend’s Easton ST.

Anyways, our first game was at 1140 Monday morning and we played the Mississauga Rattlers of Ontario, Canada. After a shaky start, we were down 3-0 after the first five minutes of the game. Eventually pulling ourselves together, we came out on top in the end of a very offensive battle 8-6. Ryan Burrows, former Long Beach State Roller Hockey team captain was the MVP of the game, pulling through with 5 goals. Our second and final game of the day was against the Alkali Asylum and did not go so well as we lost 4-1.

Our tournament continued Tuesday morning against the Labeda MKS from Colombia, South America. We easily dispatched of them 9-1 and looked ahead toward our afternoon game against the Las Vegas Tour Rebels. This game was personal for me as one of their players was a good friend of mine who I have played together with for the last 12 years. Unfortunately we fell to the Rebels 4-0 and thus concluded the round robin play. We were seeded #10 with a 2-2 record and scheduled to play the #7 seed, which happened to be the Vegas Tour Rebels…

In between the two games, my stick finally arrived! Most of the players on Rebels also play on their Pro team, so the second time around we knew they weren’t to be trifled with. The game itself started out as a very offensive battle, with 3-3 tie within the first seven minutes of the game. It slowed down though as the game fell wore on and it came down to a 5-3 Rebels lead with 5 minutes remaining in the game. With 3 minutes and some change left, yours truly put a one-timer/tip into the back of the net to make it a one-goal game.  Nothing much changed until the 1:30 left in the game when we pulled goalie, Erik Long and set up in their zone. After numerous shots and rebounds we were unsuccessful and thus ended our Division 1 run.

I’ll keep you posted as we begin our Men’s Platinum portion of the tournament on Friday. Wish us luck!

U Foam is a proprietary blend blend of materials formed using a unique process, enabling the designers at CCM Hockey to build a product that remains lightweight but performs at the highest level.  U Foam is used on all of the Crazy Light protective gear.

The U Foam features game changing technologies and a new construction that no longer necessitates traditional plastic inserts and caps.  The U Foam actually absorbs impacts better than the traditional foams with plastic inserts.  This is going to make the pads much lighter and give you a greater range of motion.  If you were to put on the Crazy Light shoulder pads,Crazy Light elbow pads, Crazy Light pants, and Crazy Light shin guards you would reduce the weight of your gear by approximately 4 pounds!

The U Foam is water resistant so your pads will not retain any water weight.  These pads will stay about 36% lighter than any other pads on the market keeping you lighter and faster throughout the game.

-The Crazy Light Gear is available at Inline and Ice Warehouse

We just returned from the Let’s Play Hockey Show held in Las Vegas, NV over the weekend. It was a great turn out with huge booths from Easton, CCM/Reebok, and Warrior plus some exciting roller products from new company Alkali Hockey. Lot’s of great new products were displayed and it was great to hear from all the knowledgable products managers about what was the latest and greatest. Be on the lookout for releases and reviews coming your way soon.

Ice/Inline Warehouse is a global e-commerce business and online retailer for all your Ice and Inline Hockey needs.  We employ a diverse staff and are currently looking for an Assistant Web Editor with ice or inline hockey experience and knowledge.

Ice/Inline Warehouse publishes in-depth reviews on the latest hockey equipment and provides detailed product descriptions for all of the products sold on our website.  Our website features include “how to” and educational material.  An Assistant Web Editor will have solid writing/editing skills and a background or interest in hockey.  We require applicants to have current or extensive playing knowledge and experience to help improve review and content accuracy.  Knowledge not limited to Ice or Inline experience.

The Assistant Web Editor will be responsible for assisting in product descriptions; taking an active role in product reviews; assisting with writing and editing web content; assisting in video product reviews; editing customer feedback; and disseminating information on new products to relevant IW team members.  The secondary role is assisting the customer service staff and team sales in answering calls, emails or retail sales if required.

Ice/Inline Warehouse is located in San Luis Obispo, CA.  While Ice/Inline Warehouse is an online business, the Assistant Web Editor will be required to reside in the area of beautiful San Luis Obispo and fully enjoy its gorgeous California sunshine.  Day-to-day hands-on experience with the products to be written about makes telecommuting NOT an option.

Ice/Inline Warehouse offers a full medical, dental and vision insurance plan as well as profit sharing and employee 401K programs.

How to apply:

- Resumes submissions are required for all candidates. Interested candidates should submit their resume to:  joe@inlinewarehouse.com – ATTN: Hockey Web Editor

- Show Availability

- Tell About Yourself & Any Hockey Knowledge

- Must be physically capable (able to lift 50lbs, climb ladders, etc.)

- Applications must be submitted by September 30^th.

• Location: SLO

• Compensation: Based on experience

• Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.

• Please, no phone calls about this job!

• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

IW Hockey will be giving away a free hockey stick (of your choice) to one lucky IW Fan, once our facebook page reaches 5,000 likes….So tell your friends, family, and teammates to join the IW Hockey Team.

Like our Facebook page HERE