First we build general strength, then we add speed and power once that strength holds. After that we add in the sport-specific work to make sure they are ready for their season. Hockey PEI runs its provincial championships in late March.
How long is a hockey off-season on PEI?
For most minor hockey players on the Island it runs from the end of March to the start of the next season in the fall. Hockey PEI held its 2025 provincial championships over the weekends of March 21 to 23 and March 28 to 30, and most associations finish up around the same point each year. That leaves roughly four months, and the first few weeks usually go to letting the body settle after a long season.
What should a first off-season focus on?
The first off-season is about movement quality and general strength, not load. A program built on the seven basic patterns covers most of what a young athlete needs at that stage: squat, hinge, lunge, push, pull, carry and rotation. Those patterns are how force gets produced on the ice, so an athlete who can hold them under a moderate load has somewhere to put the speed work later. Better movement makes better training possible.
When does speed and power work get added?
Once the athlete can hold position under load, and that is a call a coach makes in the room from week to week. K2 splits it into three tiers. Fundamental at U13 is about learning the patterns, and Development at U15 is where the strength base goes on. Performance is U18 and up, where speed, power and conditioning sit on top of a base that is already built. Athletes move up as they grow, so the training keeps matching the stage they are at.
How many days a week is enough?
Enough that the work is repeatable, which is usually fewer days than a motivated fourteen-year-old wants. Sessions at K2 run sixty minutes at every stage. More is not automatically better inside a four-month window, because the off-season only counts as the work an athlete recovers from.
What should a parent look for in a program?
The four things worth looking for have nothing to do with equipment. Somebody watching every rep, so form gets corrected while it is still correctable. A written program that changes over the summer instead of running the same circuit every session. A group where the athlete is training beside others at a similar stage and a similar age. And a plan for September, because an off-season that ends the day the season starts was only ever half a plan.
What happens once the season starts again?
In-season training has a different job, which is holding on to what got built over the summer. Less volume, and sessions built around the game schedule. What September changes is the purpose of the training and the volume that comes with it.
K2 Athletics runs sport performance training in Charlottetown in three tiers from U13 up. See the sport performance programs.