Jay Richards

Yesterday Jake, Jon and I skied from the end of the Mary Yellowhead road into Tamarac Wildlife Refuge. Last fall they resurfaced the road and it is really nice for rollin'. Very little traffic, lots of little lakes, ponds and good mix of forest. Ranks up with one of the more scenic roads, imo, in the state of MN (the Strawberry lake store to Ponsford prairie section). It was really nice with ideal conditions, sunny and cool but a pretty stiff northwest breeze, and quite relaxing actually. We did about 15km. Jon was a trooper and plugged away the entire time with no whining. He had practice in the evening and I thought he would be hanging on the boards but he was wheelin' and dealin' like usual. The new head coach for the high school is also the director of youth hockey and he is doing a fantastic job. Working with all levels the first two weeks. They were doing this 3 on 3 drill last night. Both nets were back to back in between the blue line and goal line. One goalie. A coach on each end of the board so if the opposing team got the puck, they had to pass to the coach before they could try and score and the coach would try to pass to a open skater. The goalie was moving all over the place. Great drill for the netminder and the setup of the nets kept things tight and crisp. Never seen a drill like that in 30 years. Cool stuff.