In an era where people are obsessed with fitness, and athletes are looking for ways to add an edge to their game, it’s hard to separate the beneficial training programs from the ones that are just looking to make money.
P3 Sports Inc. is one of the former.
Originally started five years ago as Next Level Sports, the company was rebranded by owner and development coach Ryan Hilderman a year ago into P3 (Passion, Perspective, Performance), in the hopes of growing, and giving Cochrane and area hockey players a training program like no other, with players such as Calgary Hitmen forward Andrew Fyten having taken part in the program.
“Next Level Sports was getting a reputation of working with a lot of younger players,” Hilderman said. “We did work with a group of older, more elite players as well, and we wanted to have a different brand for them that we could advertise, so we came up with Passion, Perspective, Performance.”
Hilderman believes that perspective is something which is missing in sports today, and that he and his staff as parents, former players and coaches can educate people in minor hockey associations about.
“We’ve worked with coaches at grassroots levels,” he said. “We see what works long-term, and what doesn’t. Our concept was if you don’t have the perspective part, but the passion, the performance won’t be there at the end of the day.”
Since starting in Cochrane, the program – which is recognized by Hockey Alberta as one of the most advanced in the province – has constantly been expanding, and now works with the Cochrane Minor Hockey Association at all levels, as well as having development training programs which are used in Medicine Hat, Irvine, Redcliff, and Crossfield.
“Eighty per cent of our business is in Cochrane,” Hilderman explained. “I approached Cochrane Minor when I was working in Drumheller with the Dragons a few years ago as a coach mentor. We had a solid plan in place and believed we could give them something in terms of support and experience. They let us run a trial session with peewee and midget teams, and the rest is history. We’ve been picking up more teams each year.”
Each team in Cochrane Minor Hockey has a budget to utilize P3’s player development and coach mentors.
“Within that budget, teams get a couple practice observations and a game observation from our mentors,” Hilderman said. “From there, they can pick whatever they want, be it power skating, contact confidence, or shooting, among other aspects.”
What makes P3’s training program different than the competition?
“In a lot of ways there’s a bunch of people that do the same thing as us,” Hilderman said.
“But, one of the ways we wanted to be different, especially with the older players when it came to their training, was that we wanted it to be about the individual athlete. In many programs, an athlete gets a training regime and they just go and do it. You can benefit from that to a certain extent, but what one player needs is different from what another one wants. Some players may want to gain weight, and others want to lose it. Our trainers have the education and experience to give that to our clients.”
P3 are able to give their athletes the individual attention they need because there aren’t more than six to ten players in the gym at a single time, especially with groups of older players who don’t need as much coaching.
Another factor, which separates them from the competition, is how P3 starts out training their clients.
“The first thing we do with clients is take them to Mission Fitness in Calgary where they get a Functional Movement Screen,” Hilderman said.
“There’s also Neurokinetic Therapy (NKT) which takes place. The head trainer (Ron Jarrett) is only one of two people in Canada who is level three certified in NKT, so he has the ability to look more in depth at a player than a traditional screen would. Getting that right start with a player is key.”
One of the players who has benefited from this right start and training is Lethbridge Hurricane’s captain and Cochrane native Tyler Wong.
“I’ve been training with them for five years now and it’s been awesome” Wong said.
“Throughout the summers, I’ve been doing their off-ice program and morning skates with my brothers Cole and Austin. It’s been amazing for our development. One of their trainers, Leo Keefer, has really helped us.
“I’ve got to give them a lot of credit for pushing me to get into better shape. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.”
What keeps Wong coming back?
“I like that P3 are always trying to get better,” he said. “You are never going to have a perfect program, and I think they’ve realized that. But, they always strive to incorporate new methods into their training and look for new ways to increase how much they can help athletes.
“They’ve improved a lot since they started up, and we’ve grown together. They’ve really changed the way they train us, and focus more on correcting your natural body dysfunctions in order to get you functioning at your maximum ability.”
Is one of the company’s main purposes to provide elite players like Wong with the training that will one day take an athlete to a professional or university level?
“They certainly come to get the level of training that will help them get there,” Hilderman said. “Our goal is to offer something that will help players from initiation all the way to people looking to go pro.”
Always looking to the future, P3 recently bought the licence to Tribe Team Training (from New Zealand), which is an adult-based program, and plans are moving forward to start up their own sports school.
“We were just approved by Rocky View to run a sports academy out of Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre,” Hilderman said. “We decided it would be best to run it out of there instead of a school like Cochrane High or Bow Valley. It’s for kids, grades 5 to 12. We are going to start out with hockey, and if all goes well we are hoping to incorporate a soccer program as well.
“We run spring hockey and a lot of stuff year round. During the winter, we run morning skills camps, such as the shooting camp that ex-NHLer Morris Lukowich runs. There’s stuff going on all the time for us, which is great.”
One of the main advantages of this new academy, which Hilderman expects to be up and running for the 2016/17 school year, is that all of the training will be taking place during the day, and high school kids who participate can receive up to 30 school credits, and middle school-level kids will become accustomed with high level coaching.
“Leadership is an important character trait that players can take from hockey,” Hilderman said. “Skills are crucial, so we found the school to be a perfect place to create that platform. It’s a way for us to give kids on and off-ice training, and we’ve created a course, BOULDER (Bachelor of Leadership Development) that’s going to be part of the curriculum.
“The school also gives parents the evenings and weekends to be with their kids, and we’ve also made it so players can do other sports and take part in activities with their families they would normally miss out on because of hockey.”
While the sky may be the limit for his organization, Hilderman is always looking to keep Cochrane as the home base.
“We want to provide something different, than the competition,” he said. “With the level of expertise that our staff brings, I can honestly say that we do. We want to continue to work with Hockey Alberta and get our program out into other communities across the province, but Cochrane is our main one.
“It’s where it all started and we’re always looking to make sure we do what’s best for Cochrane first and foremost.”
For more information, go to p3training.ca
