The Grade 9 English class is deep into a lesson on Greek mythology when the door opens and the boss pops his head in.

Guy Girouard, who has been giving a tour of the campus, quickly apologizes for the interruption. But before he closes the door, he spots a student and delivers an important message.

“Your skates are sharpened. You can pick them up after class.”

Welcome to the Canadian International Hockey Academy, where “School. Hockey. Life.” is the motto — although not necessarily in that order.

Located 40 kilometres east of downtown Ottawa in the charming town of Rockland, the academy opened its doors four years ago with Gatorade and CCM as sponsors and the full blessing of Hockey Canada. It’s a prep school, but the kind where Calgary Flames head coach Bob Hartley is on the faculty as a senior hockey adviser and where the 90 students, who are often hand-picked by the school’s scouts, have little to no body fat and walk to class with books in one hand and a post-workout protein shake in the other.

The sprawling campus, which sits on 35 lush acres overlooking the Ottawa River, has everything a hockey player could want: an outdoor rink with wraparound boards, unlimited skate sharpening and pro-style dressing rooms with an ice bath that Girouard, the academy’s hockey director, says would make most junior teams jealous.

The focal point of it all is a $27-million, twin-ice training centre with a 2,000-seat arena.

It is inside this massive arena that you will find four small classrooms. Meat-freezer cold and thick with the smell of wet equipment, they are steps away from the ice and a Zamboni painted in the school’s colours. Because students wear skates as often as shoes, the floors are made of soft rubber.

“If you’re a hockey player, you can’t help but love it there,” says Windsor Spitfires forward Gabe Vilardi, a projected top-5 pick in the 2017 NHL Draft who spent last year at the Canadian International Hockey Academy. “You’re on the ice every day. You wake up, you go to the caf for breakfast, then school for first period, then to the gym, then lunch at the caf, then two more periods, then practice with the team for last period. I would stay out for another hour or so with the coaches.”

Hockey academies are not mandatory. But like summer hockey leagues, they’re a growing trend, with more parents choosing to enrol their kids in the same school as this year’s No. 1 draft pick, Connor McDavid, or other young NHL players. Twelve of the 32 players named to Canada’s world junior selection roster spent time at hockey academies across the country, including Mitch Marner (Hill Academy in Vaughan, Ont.), Joe Hicketts (Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton, B.C.) and Noah Juulsen (Yale Hockey Academy, B.C.).

Academies draw families in by promising to make students better hockey players, with additional ice time and private instruction. They usually fulfil that promise. But keeping up with the Joneses — or the McDavids — comes at a cost.

With a price tag that can reach $53,000 a year, rivalling a new BMW, they place yet another financial barrier in front of families who are trying to help their children fulfil their dreams of reaching the NHL, no matter the odds.

“I think it started out on a fairly slow pace and seems to be picking up steam now,” says Pier-Alexandre Poulin, Hockey Canada’s manager of school programs. “Does it pressure parents? I would say sometimes parents have expectations that exceed the child’s talents and invest in that possibility. I think it’s an unfair suggestion that every child who is a skilled hockey player can go to a sports school and ultimately become this top-notch talent.”

HOGWARTS OF HOCKEY

Sports academies — what some call the Hogwarts of Hockey — are not a new concept in Canada.

St. Michael’s College in Toronto, where Dave Keon, Tim Horton and more recently Jason Spezza and Tyler Seguin all studied and played, began recruiting top players for its elite hockey program in the early 1900s. Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, in Wilcox, Sask., has been placing an equal emphasis on academics and athletics since the 1920s, and counts Wendel Clark, Rod Brind’Amour, Vincent Lecavalier and Morgan Rielly among its alumni.

But in the last 15 years, the model has gone from private schools that offer a hockey program to specialized sports schools where hockey is the main focus. Their origin can be traced to the Molson Open-Ice Summit on Player Development in 1999, following Canada’s disastrous fourth-place finish at the Nagano Olympics, when the country’s top hockey minds became concerned that not enough high-end skilled players were being produced.

One recommendation was to adopt the European model of hockey academies, which help players get closer to what Outliers author Malcolm Gladwell termed “the 10,000-Hour Rule” for gaining expertise at a skill by spending additional time on the ice.

“The idea was to provide additional opportunities for youngsters to be on the ice and to have enhanced development, in that they could get on the ice a couple of more times a week and get instruction,” says Hockey Canada’s Poulin. “With the youngsters that were going to Shattuck-St. Mary’s (in Minnesota), if we didn’t give them the freedom to go to play where they wanted to in the Canadian system, then they would ... go to prep schools in the Eastern U.S. or central U.S.”

Other factors were at play, too. Neil Doctorow, who opened PEAC Academy for Elite Athletes in 2005, did so because he believed there was a void that needed to be filled. As a high school teacher in Unionville, Ont., Doctorow had grown frustrated with colleagues that penalized students who missed school because of conflicting hockey schedules. The school had an accomplished music program that afforded students academic leeway, but hockey players did not receive the same flexibility.

“(Nashville Predators forward) Cody Hodgson was at the school then and there was a lot of conversation around him missing so much school and not being a good student,” says Doctorow. “They were just so negative around the student athlete. I figured there was already a hundred of these sport academies. But there was nothing.”

With Hockey Canada now licensing academies — former president Bob Nicholson’s son went to Okanagan Hockey Academy — the landscape has changed since then. There are now 26 licensed academies across the country and another 100 or so that are unlicensed. All told, Hockey Canada says about 5,000 schools — from all-day academies to local high schools — offer hockey as part of their curriculum.

“For guys who want to get better, that entails being on the ice every day,” says Joe Hicketts, who won a gold medal with Canada’s world junior team in 2015. “Being on the ice seven to nine hours a week is better than three to four hours.”

“It helped me a lot,” says Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Marner, who was selected fourth overall in 2015. “You’re on the ice four times a week. It’s a lot more skill-based and focusing on your hands.”

A typical day at PEAC School for Elite Athletes starts with 90 minutes of semi-private, on-ice instruction (former NHL goalie Kay Whitmore, who is the NHL’s director of hockey operations and goaltender equipment, is a coach), followed by four periods of traditional classes and then another hour or so of sport-specific fitness programs.

At Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton, B.C., the final bell rings at 1 p.m., whereupon students head to the rink or gym for another four or five hours of on- and off-ice training.

Electives, such as music or art, are replaced with ice time.

“Here at PEAC, being on the ice from September to June, you would be on the ice for about 310 hours,” says managing director Robb Nelson. “You would be training two-and-a-half, three times more than the average kid. So it’s like someone who reads once a week and someone who reads five times a week. Who’s going to read better? If you want it, you’re going to get to the next level.”

A year’s tuition to PEAC is $53,000. The Okanagan Hockey Academy charges $35,000 a year — more if you’re from out of province. Tuition for students living at the Canadian International Hockey Academy is $39,900 a year.

That does not include mandatory fees such as equipment ($600 to $800), school uniform ($350-$500), textbooks ($300) and $1,000 for such things as orientation week, SAT prep courses and exams.

The median family income in Canada, according to Stats Canada, was $76,550 in 2013.

“Unfortunately, when we go and recruit and watch the kids play at certain events, there’s no sign on their forehead that says, ‘My parents have a lot of money and can afford this,’” says Girouard. “Sometimes you meet the families and you start talking to them and they do make certain sacrifices to provide for their kids, like most parents want to do. They want to provide the best. It’s a business.”

It’s a business that’s booming, despite the cost.

The Okanagan Hockey Academy had 16 students when it was founded in 2002. All were boys. Today, there is an academy in Austria (100 students) and England (50 students), while another opened in Edmonton this September (20 students, with 20 more expected next year). The original Penticton location, which underwent a $90-million expansion in 2008, now has 136 students, of which 21 are female.

PEAC had six students studying inside a portable when it launched 12 years ago, before taking over a 22,000-square foot abandoned airplane hangar with 14 classrooms and a state-of-the-art gym for its 108 students, half of which are in the hockey program. There are plans to expand further, by adding a residence in the 80,000-square foot space above.

There were about 80 kids trying out for The Hill Academy’s 23 roster spots at an evaluation camp in the summer, while Banff Hockey Academy program director Garry Unger says there is a “stack of students” hoping to enrol at the school.

“Academies are popping up and parents are finding ways to get their kids to them,” says Jeremy Mylymok, male hockey co-ordinator for Athol Murray College of Notre Dame. “You’d be amazed at the type of sacrifices parents make to get their kids to these academies, so they can play major junior or college hockey.”

KEY MARKETING

The easiest and most efficient way a sports school can market its program is through its alumni. McDavid spent three years at PEAC and was the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NHL draft. So, naturally, that is where 14-year-old Kobe Desmond wanted to go.

The problem? The Desmonds are not your prototypical private school family.

“Oh, gosh, no. We’re in the middle (class),” says Nancy Desmond, an auto adjuster with an insurance company. “We’re the hard-working family who has to sacrifice trips and things for our kids. Some parents can do it all, but we can’t.”

And yet, the Desmonds are somehow making it work. Nancy’s parents and some friends have helped them out financially and the family is on a monthly payment plan and also discovered that you can buy used textbooks at half the price. But mostly, they are living paycheque to paycheque so Kobe and his younger brother, 11-year-old Tori — “You get a discount if you have two kids there,” Nancy says — can go to PEAC.

“My kids do well, so you want to help them any way you can,” she says. “I would never say, ‘Kobe is going all the way,’ because there’s so many good hockey players. There’s Connor McDavid and then there’s everyone else who can potentially make it with hard work and dedication. I would say that’s where Kobe fits in.”

No academy suggests it holds a skeleton key to the NHL, but most are not afraid to promise parents that their son or daughter will improve and could realistically play for a U.S. college or major junior team in Canada. Considering that players in the Canadian Hockey League receive an educational scholarship, some parents view it as a worthwhile investment.

“Often we joke, we’re spending the money now so you better get a scholarship,” says Rick Kloepfer, the president of a trailer rental company, whose son, Tommy, is a Grade 9 student at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ont and also plays Triple-A hockey for the York Simcoe Express.

PEAC, where the walls are covered in signed jerseys and newspaper clippings of its famous hockey alumni, is not as shy about why students go there: to be the best. Not everyone, of course, is going to make it to the NHL. But PEAC managing director Nelson claims that “87 per cent play at a post-secondary school and get a free ride.”

“No one has odds like that,” says Nelson, who added that of the eight students who graduated last year, six are playing college hockey on a scholarship. “That’s why we do it.”

Since opening in 2002, the Okanagan Hockey Academy has seen only six of its 1,122 students reach the NHL (40 have played in the WHL and 20 have received NCAA scholarships). Those are not great odds. But they are realistic for a sport where less than one per cent of players reach the highest levels.

“Parents are moving their kids away when they are eight or nine to put them into an academy for $25,000 to $40,000 a year and having it as part of the development of their child,” says Jim Parcels, who co-authored Selling The Dream: How hockey Parents and Their Kids Are Paying the Price for Our National Obsession. “It’s a mixed bag. A guy like Mitch Marner, whether he played in an academy, he was already good enough to get drafted in the NHL.”

Doctorow says the reason he finally sold PEAC was in part because “It felt really greasy to be a part of it. It was turning into something that I didn’t want.”

He’s talking about the business side of sports schools and how many seem to open for monetary reasons. A class system is forming, he fears, where you not only have to be the most talented but also among the wealthiest to succeed.

Doctorow is now involved in the Red Bull Hockey Academy in Salzburg, Austria, which intends to be a one-stop destination for the best young players in the world. The best part about it, says Doctorow, is that it’s free for players who are good enough to play at the highest level, something no school in Canada offers.

“They literally recruit the best of the best and then train them there,” says Doctorow. “That’s going to be the next phase where people go.”

For the Canadian International Hockey Academy, the poster boy of the program could be Vilardi. The Kingston native, who was selected with the second-overall pick in the 2015 OHL draft, spent only one year at the Rockland school. But if all goes according to plan, that year will translate into years and years of residual success for the fledgling program.

“Shattuck didn’t get Sidney Crosby the first year they opened,” says Girouard. “We’re hoping Gabe breaks the ice for us and sells the program. Players don’t come here to rot. They develop.”

mtraikos@postmedia.com

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