The season’s over, but the hard work never ceases.
As the Calgary Hitmen return to their hometowns throughout Western Canada upon completion of their 2014-2015 WHL campaign, they’ll be doing so with a strict fitness regimen put in place by team strength and conditioning coach Sean Hope-Ross.
According to Hope-Ross, who just completed his 12
th
season with the Hitmen, every player’s off-season fitness plan is different.
“Everything is individualized,” he said. “Some guys need to drop some body fat, some guys need to get strong and others need to put on weight. You really have to customize what each player’s doing so that it meets their own needs.”
While looking to achieve their fitness goals during the off-season, most Hitmen will continue to hit the ice.
Hitmen forward Elliott Peterson, along with defenceman Colby Harmsworth are hoping to get “Harms and the Boys” back together for another season of three-on-three hockey in Saskatoon, where they’ll get to fire pucks on goaltender Mack Shields.
“It sucks playing against Mack. He’s pretty hard to score on,” Peterson explained. “It’s pretty competitive, but it’s pretty fun. You just go and play hockey with your buddies, have fun – lazy back checks and things like that.”
After a deep playoff run, Hope-Ross said the Hitmen need not necessarily focus on on-ice activities.
He said that the priority for the Hitmen who took heavy minutes during the seasonshould be geared toward strength-building.
“Someone like a Jake Bean or Travis Sanheim, who have a tall, thin build, their goal is going to be to put on as much size and strength as they can,” Hope-Ross said. “The biggest thing is when they go home, they need to work specifically on their goals.”
“A month from now they’ll progress to doing a lot of sprints, a lot of lactic acid tolerance things like running stairs, doing hill runs  and that sort of thing,” Hope-Ross added. “Ideally a shift is 30 seconds long or shorter; you want them to be able to go as hard they can for that those 30, 40 seconds so their training has to reflect that.”
A strong contingent of Hitmen players will spend the off-season prepping for NHL training camps.
Brendan Burke (Arizona Coyotes), Travis Sanheim, Radel Fazleev (Philadelphia Flyers), Keegan Kanzig (Calgary Flames), Jake Virtanen (Vancouver Canucks), Chase Lang (Minnesota Wild), Kenton Helgesen (Anaheim Ducks), Ben Thomas (Tampa Bay Lightning) and Adam Tambellini (New York Rangers) will all likely attend camp with their respective NHL clubs.
For those nine Hitmen and others who may receive camp invites, Hope-Ross explained that their on-going training will have them ready to compete with men at the professional level.
“Physically they don’t need to be doing anything different,” Hope-Ross said of preparing for NHL camp. “Essentially they are professionals from the day they come here and some of them even Midget-AAA level, they train like the pros.”