Local minor hockey players will soon have a new place to grow. The Grande Prairie Minor Hockey Association has announced that it will be building a new development centre. Executive Director Lorna LeBlanc says the Chris McMillan Development Centre will be built and named in honour of one of the group’s hockey parents.
“Chris McMillan was a hockey parent who passed away in January of 2006. In his funeral announcement, he requested all donations to go to Grande Prairie Minor Hockey. From that, we got a considerable sum of money and it was all supposed to be used for the development of players and coaches.”
The new room will be built in the Coca-Cola Centre in the old site of Ernie’s Sports Experts. The GPMHA office is also in the same building and will be located above the new room.
LeBlanc says there will be tables and chairs, video equipment for game playback and storage for coaching materials. She hopes the new room will not only be a space for the 1210 players in the program but the coaches as well.
“We’re really hoping that the coaches take advantage of it being there. They’re going to have the capability of getting in at nighttime and on weekends. It gives them real-time teaching moments like right after a game, right after a practice, before a game… reviewing different things that they’ve tried to teach the kids.”
The development centre is expected to open in early 2019.