If you want to put your kid in the Gretzky Hockey School, not surprisingly it will cost you $999.99.

The school, which is slated for July 27-Aug 1 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, of all places, features two on-ice sessions per day, 1:5 instructor-to-player ratio, along with daily dryland sessions, power-skating drills and, according to the website, a chance to “Learn the ‘Gretzky Hockey Philosophy’ from Head Instructor Keith Gretzky (Boston Bruins), assistant instructor Dean Malkic (Boston Bruins), Glen Gretzky and staff.”

Walter Gretzky, the Great One’s father, will be a special guest speaker and Wayne “and friends” will make appearances and do autograph sessions.

Learn more by clicking here.

Below are a couple of columns I have written about hockey schools – the Defense First Hockey School run by Canadiens defenceman Mike Weaver, and the Howie Meeker Hockey School I was lucky enough to attend as a kid:

(Photo by Mike Pinder/Edmonton Journal)

Defence first for Habs’ Dream Weaver

PUBLISHED IN THE GAZETTE ON JULY 5, 2014

STU COWAN
GAZETTE SPORTS EDITOR

Mike Weaver has done all right for a player who was never selected at the National Hockey League draft. The Canadiens re-signed the veteran defenceman during the Canada Day free-agent sweepstakes, giving him a one-year contract worth $1.75 million. It is the most lucrative one-year salary the 36-year-old will earn as he enters his 13th season in the NHL and, according to capgeek.com, will boost his career earnings to $8.275 million.

Not bad for a guy who has only scored eight goals in 602 career NHL games.

So it should come as no surprise that Weaver operates the Defense First Hockey School during the summer. His partner is Jon Insana, a former minor-league defenceman who was Weaver‘s teammate at Michigan State University.

“Our big thing is initiate and dictate as opposed to read and react,” is how Insana explained the school’s philosophy over the phone this week from Michigan. “Trying to be a step ahead and seeing things develop and being prepositioned properly so you’re not always reacting a step behind.”

He basically described Weaver.

When Insana arrived at Michigan State for his freshman season in 1998-99, after playing with the U.S. junior national team, coach Ron Mason told him to watch Weaver, who was starting his third year of university hockey.

“He kind of made it clear for me to keep an eye on Mike, the way he played and the way he conducted himself on and off the ice,” Insana recalled.

“Honestly, it took a while to see exactly what made him the player that he is,” Insana added. “The obvious things that he did well, he always kept things simple, he made the smart play always, was never caught out of position. But once you really watch what he does, he’s a pretty dynamic defensive player, which is hard to see and kind of hard to describe. But the same way that the great offensive players do unusual things offensively to create those opportunities, he does just as much defensively, which is an unusual characteristic in a player.”

This marks the 10th year that the Defense First Hockey School has been in operation. There are camps later this month in East Lansing, Mich., where Insana is the head instructor, and in Toronto, where Weaver is in charge. There are two age groups, 11-13 and 14-17.

“The age kind of indicates what our intentions are,” Insana said. “Eleven-to 12-years-old we feel is an appropriate age to really start developing better hockey players, not just better individual skills and techniques and things, but actually learning to see the game differently.

“The perception from a lot of kids, and myself included at a young age, you always assume that you have to be flashy, something that stands out head and shoulders above the rest,” he added. “The things we talk about at our camp and the things that are evident in Mike’s play is you don’t have to do the flashy things. Consistency is a skill and it’s something that you have to learn … showing up every night and every practice and coming in with that professional attitude that Mike does has allowed him to kind of overcome a lot of overwhelmingly big obstacles in his career. That’s the biggest thing. You don’t have to have the best hands on the ice or do the fancy spinaramas and all the other things to be noticed and to be appreciated by your coaches and your teammates.”

Weaver, who is only 5-foot-10 and 183 pounds, was passed over at the NHL draft and got his chance after former Atlanta Thrashers GM Don Waddell went to scout one of his Michigan State teammates, but was impressed by Weaver‘s physical, defensive style of play and offered him a $25,000 signing bonus after he graduated.

Insana also wasn’t drafted by the NHL and went on to log many miles during an 11-year minor-league career, including stops with the Manchester Monarchs, Trenton Titans, Florida Everblades, Lowell Lock Monsters, Muskegon Fury, Grand Rapids Griffins, Cleveland Barons, Chicago Wolves and Houston Aeros. He also played for the Iserlohn Roosters in Germany and for Vienna and Innsbruck in Austria before hanging up his skates following the 2012-13 season. He studied kinesiology and exercise science at university and now works in medical sales in Michigan for Biomet.

Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin acquired Weaver from the Florida Panthers at last season’s NHL trade deadline in exchange for a fifth-round draft pick. Weaver‘s old-school defensive game made him a fan favourite as he posted 1-6-7 totals and a plus-9 in 17 regular-season games, followed by 1-3-4 totals and a plus-8 in 17 playoff games. He also made the Dream Weaver song from the 1970s by Gary Wright a hit again in Montreal.

When Weaver spoke to the Montreal media on a conference call after signing his new contract, he was asked if there was interest in his services from other teams besides the Canadiens. “There was probably about 29 teams interested in me,” he said with a laugh.

“There were a few teams that called me, called my agent,” he added more realistically, “and I knew that I wasn’t kind of a first wave of players that were going to be going, I was probably going to be the second or even third. I’ve known that all my career, it’s been like that, so it wasn’t anything new. But I’m glad I really didn’t have to wait for that. I’m glad it happened right away and I’m happy to be a part of the Montreal Canadiens again and be here for a full entire year and be back in a hockey city with great fans.”

Insana was asked to describe his friend Weaver as a person.

“He’s very real … that’s the easiest way to describe him,” Insansa said. “Exactly what you see is what you get with him. He approaches everything with the same work ethic and attitude.

“He’s kind of a computer geek,” Insana added. “He designed our website for the hockey school, he was a telecommunications major in college. The assumption about hockey players and athletes is that they don’t get too deep into that kind of stuff, but that’s almost a close second to hockey as far as what he’s passionate about.”

He’s also passionate about defence.

Blast from past: Meeker’s school

PUBLISHED IN THE GAZETTE ON JAN. 22, 2011

STU COWAN
GAZETTE SPORTS EDITOR

If there was a videotape rolling of my favourite childhood memories, there’s a part where I would scream out: “Stop it right there!”

The scene would be Stanstead College in 1976, when I was a 13-year-old fortunate enough to attend Howie Meeker‘s Hockey School.

If you’re around my age and played hockey as a kid, if you didn’t go to one of Meeker’s summer hockey schools, you probably wish that you could have. And if you didn’t attend his school, you certainly remember him using his telestrator to break down plays -screaming “Stop it right there!” -as an analyst on Hockey Night in Canada.

Meeker ran his hockey school out of Stanstead College for nine years, before moving it to Potsdam, N.Y., for nine more, and then enjoying a 25-year run in Parksville, B.C., where the retired 87-year-old now lives. Thousands of Canadian kids learned the finer points of the game from Meeker and his instructors.

But Howie Meeker‘s Hockey School wasn’t only about hockey. There also was tennis, lacrosse, swimming, soccer, etc., mixed in with two on-ice sessions per day. It was a blast.

So I had a smile on my face when I learned last month that Meeker was one of 54 new appointments to the Order of Canada, which recognizes “a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation.” Meeker was officially cited for “his contributions to hockey as a broadcaster and coach to players across the nation.”

Meeker also has been involved in Special Olympics, the Salvation Army and, along with his wife, Leah, has played a key role in fundraising for the B.C. Guide Dog Services. He also is a veteran of the Second World War, a former member of parliament and an author.

As a hockey player, Meeker beat out a guy named Gordie Howe to win the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie in 1946-47, played in three All-Star Games and won three Stanley Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

These days, Meeker is simply enjoying the finer things in life.

“I’m doing great,” he said when I reached him by phone on Wednesday. “It’s 4 o’clock out here … just sitting down now for happy hour. I’ve got a dark rum and Coke and my wife has a glass of scotch. … You could pitch a rock into the ocean off our deck here.”

Meeker says his Order of Canada came “as a total surprise … I never once for a second thought I’d qualify.”

He said he received a phone call a while back from a woman in Ottawa, thinking it was probably for some kind of survey. Instead, she said: “Your name has been put forward for the Order of Canada, and if it was passed here in Ottawa, would you take it?”

His response: “I said yes! … Lord, thunder, Jesus … boy, I said yes.”

Meeker found out he made it on Dec. 30 when his daughter, Jane, called from her home in Newfoundland.

“It was 8 o’clock in the morning out here, and she said, ‘Dad! Dad! You got the Order of Canada!’ ” Meeker recalled. “She heard it on CBC. We put on the television and there at the bottom of the news program it was announced. It was just great … absolutely great.”

Since then, Meeker’s phone has been ringing with some old, familiar voices on the other end of the line.

“I have made contact with people that I either worked with, or played with, or became friends with from the neighbourhoods I lived, from 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago!” he said. “I had a friend phone up from 1946, for Pete’s sake … just amazing.

“To reconnect with these people and spend time talking with them has been great. Half of them say: ‘Hey, you ass—-, I thought you were dead’ ” he added with a big laugh.

And Meeker still remembers the laughs he enjoyed at Stanstead College.

“We had a great staff of teachers and students … it was a great setup at Stanstead,” he said. “Stanstead was a wonderful, wonderful place. It couldn’t have been better. I had nine just wonderful years there … we had a lot of fun.”

I told Meeker my memory of former Boston Bruins defenceman Bob Armstrong teaching us how to block shots at the hockey school, saying: “If you don’t time it properly, you end up looking like this,” while taking out his false teeth.

Meeker laughed and told me about a memory he has of Howe, the man he beat out for the Calder Trophy.

“I once said to my wife, ‘Dear, look at what Gordie Howe did to me,’ and I took out my teeth,” he said with a laugh.

I asked Meeker if he watches much NHL hockey these days.

“I don’t watch a lot, but bits and pieces … a period or two,” he said. “Out here, it’s 4 o’clock when the games start in the East. It’s still beautiful out here and we’re gardening or golfing or doing whatever. But I usually catch the last period of most games.

“Certain teams I like,” he added, naming the Detroit Red Wings and Vancouver Canucks in particular. “The teams with two good lines, three or four good defenceman and good goaltending, who play a freewheeling and wide-open game. It’s beautiful to watch when it’s played that way.

“But the teams on the edge, they play dump it out, dump it in, go in the corner, round and round the mulberry bush, pass it back to the defenceman … the defenceman shoots it and everybody runs in the front of the net … eighteen people stand in front of the net, it hits 14 of them and it goes in. There’s no flow.”

Does he miss the days when he was yelling, “Stop it right there!” to break down the play on Hockey Night in Canada?

“I do miss it … oh, my goodness, gracious, it was great fun,” he said. “Oh, golly, I had so many great teams … Philadelphia, the Montreal Canadiens for years and years.”

But that was a long time ago. On this day, the new member of the Order of Canada had other things to do when he hung up the phone … like finish the rum and Coke on the balcony with the ocean view.

Another “Stop it right there!” moment.