Letter

Welcome to one of the most exciting field hockey summer training camps in America. And now, with the change in venue from a college site to a more effective team bonding and team building site, you are going to soon understand why 400 – 600 hockey players a year choose this site over our collegiate sites. Most teams who train with us at this site play on turf, but with our fields cut short, packed pretty hard and perfect thickness of grass, almost every team who trains here says even our playing surface is fantastic. Most high school teams do not play on a true astroturf hockey surface but on a multisport surface either with those particles of rubber or some type of woven artificial surface. So we play about the same up here. Even our international coaches who coach and most still play say there are only a few skills you cannot do on our surface, like the drag flick. So to enable our players to experience everything, we even bring a piece of real astro turf to summer camps so you can do the drag flick too.

At this summer camp high in the mountains of central pa you certainly will not be disappointed as you’ll be getting the best hockey training available in the USA and that means better than any college camp you may have ever attended. But there is far, far more. Lets face it, in 5 days of summer camp we are not going to make a player into an Olympian nor a team into a state champion. But you will very soon find that the team building and team bonding aspect coupled with extra ordinary training is going to make you investment of time and money far more than the value you may be expecting and prepare you and your team like no other camp.

Here in this camp where we have been providing top level hockey training for over 20 years now and where we have trained well over 28,000 hockey players, the accomodations are quite simple and unique. You will be in a cottage that will sleep your entire team. There are 12 cottages in camp and the bigger ones sleep up to 50 players. Now prepare yourself as although there is no AC, at night its flat cold. In fact the majority of times players turn off all fans at night and even on the hottest days, at night some teams even choose to turn off the ventilation system at night because it is too cold!!!!! That means bring warm bedding and in the evenings after training, when you will often have a classroom session, you’ll need sweat cloths or something very warm for sure.

Someone asked about bugs and that is rarely a problem. This is a former Olympic training site and its made to be kept clean. But in reality, its in the mountains so you can expect some ocassional mosquitos so if you are concerned, bring a bottle of personal bug spray along to camp. But the facilities are sanitized each week as every summer from May through August there are hundreds and hundreds of players in camp. Often colleges run some pre-season training here so its quite a delightful environment.

Check in is from noon till 1:30 so be sure to eat on the way to camp, either in Williamsport or Dushore if you want a fancy restaurant or we always suggest the General Store in Forksville where there is great food and great prices. Its also a great experience. But in Estella there is no stores, in fact we would guess that the population is around 40 people!!! But if you forget something and really need it, we can go to Dushore, about 10 miles away and get most anything you need. The last day of training is Thursday and the session ends around 11:15 am, then till you get showered and pick up the lunch that is prepared to go, most players should expect to be back on the road by noon.

Housekeeping, this is a team job and each team is asked to place all garbage in appropriate containers and to keep the cottage clean and neat. Please do not let any open food around as that would attract insects and that we do not want in camp.

Because the fields are grass, you can wear most any footwear you prefer, but we see most players wearing turf type shoes but cleats are fine too, its your choice. But please do not plan to breakin any new shoes as all you’ll really be doing is getting tons of blisters.

You’ll be getting a few emails from us soon. We don’t like to send out too many too soon as players are busy in the summer but now with almost 3 weeks to go, now its about time.

So sit back, don’t relax as you’re going to need to be very fit to handle this summer camp. Prepare for fun excitement and one of the best weeks of hockey you have ever had.

If you need to contact us, this is the best place because at camp there is only internet on one small area of the camps and cell service is there but not in every location. The owners of this camp live right there so there is always a house phone in an emergency but you should not be contacting the camp for anything as they are the openers of the facility only, questions, contact us here.

Yours in Sport

Coach Gaudette