Reply To: Red Bulls win a big tournament

August 31, 2009 at 5:17 pm #2487

TomM

Guest

The owner of the energy drink Red Bull lives in Salzburg, Austria. He is a sports fan and has a soccer and a hockey academy with young players being trained to progress to the pro team.

In hockey they have 2 pro teams the Div. 1 team plays in the Austrian top pro league and the Div. 2 team plays in the National League with 2nd tier teams.

They have a U20 team and a U17 team with players who live in Salzburg and most go to school there. The ones under 18 live in two residences and the older ones mostly in apartments. They train about 45 times a month with on ice, dryland and skating treadmill.

The top pro league has a point system. Last year they could dress up to 60 points for a game. So if u are on the Austrian national team you are worth 4 points. If u played in the NHL or American league 4 pts. They could bring players up and down from the second team until the end of January. The rules have changed a little this year but not that much. In other words there are lots of North American players (Ryan Duncan who won the Hobey Baker 3 yrs ago is there now).

They bring in coaches from all over the hockey world and Pierre Page (Canada) is the head of the hockey program and head coach of the #1 team. Rejo Routsalainen a 2 time Stanley Cup winning Finn and Gene Reilly and American college coach are his assistants. Jursinov a famous Russian coach comes one week a month to do skills in the morning. Mon and Wed with the pro's and T, Th with the U17-20. These teams have coaches from all over the world. All the coaches help with the morning skill sessions and also help each other with the team practices.

The idea is to produce an effective and unique way to develoip elite players. The program is in it's third year. They have never go to the finals in this tournament of European Champions before and this year they won all three games with 13GF and 4GA, which is very impressive.

Page watched hockey all over the world to study the best way to play and has designed an ultra aggressive style that mixes the best from everywhere. It gives no time and space when played properly and always has 4 players on the attack who constantly interchange positions. It is very entertaining to watch.