Lil Tikes Easy Score Lacrosse Hockey Soccer Kohls
DEERWOOD-What started out every bit nothing but a failed figure skating army camp and a dream has become a hockey campsite and summertime fun destination that attracts children far and broad.
Olympian Steve Jensen and his wife Sandy are the driving forces behind Heartland Hockey Camp in Deerwood, and they have grand plans for expanding to offering lacrosse.
"We started about two years agone and cleared about 9 acres of land in the northwest corner of our 45-acre package to build a lacrosse field, and I'd say we're near halfway through it," he said.
The 80-acre campus "in the centre of Minnesota'southward vacation land ... is the but cocky-independent, privately endemic hockey army camp in the world," according to Heartland Hockey Camp's owners.
"Nosotros're excited considering nosotros figure that by almost 2021, nosotros're going to start lacrosse camps here, and it'southward a really user-friendly situation for the kids because a lot of the kids that play hockey beloved lacrosse, and then this volition exist a nice crossover for kids who want to practice two weeks in our program."
The Jensens
Sandy Jensen, 64, and her husband Steve, 63, met when they were 15 years old and have been a couple for almost half a century.
"She loved to skate. She was really captain of the hockey cheerleading team in loftier school, and I was captain of the hockey squad," he recalled with an appreciating smiling.
"When nosotros got married and I played pro hockey, she followed me all over the country and all over the world."
The old professional offensive water ice hockey actor appeared in 438 games in the National Hockey League from 1976-82. For more than three decades, he has served as campsite director and served USA Hockey for virtually two decades every bit a certified hockey official.
"And when I retired from pro hockey, I told her information technology was my passion and dream to own a summer hockey camp. Well she, of course, backed me and supported me in the idea," he said.
When they bought the foreclosed site of the futurity military camp from Deerwood Banking company in 1987 after leasing it for two years, the water ice rink on the property was merely 3-quarters completed.
"Our biggest challenge was we were going to come in and just rent the facility for two weeks considering someone else owned it and try a hockey army camp ... only by the time we were close to opening up ... they decided they couldn't do it, that they weren't going to make it," she said.
From that rocky start, they could have easily given upwardly on his dream of opening a hockey camp. Simply every bit a fellow member of the 1976 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team who led the team in goal scoring with 52 goals, he was not deterred and then easily.
"We were kind of in a bind. Nosotros took in money and we had to run a camp ... merely meanwhile a lot of local people got burned considering they had done work, and they weren't getting paid, and then information technology took quite a while for local people to believe that we were here to stay," she said.
He said, "A lot of my hockey friends that I had played NHL and Olympic hockey, none of them had faith in us that we were going to make it because back in those days we'd have been the start individual-owned hockey rink in Minnesota. ... It was a struggle for us for the starting time ten years."
Heartland Hockey
All campers receive up to half-dozen hours of ice time each day. The 2-60 minutes morning session is dedicated to individual skill development and the two-hr afternoon is focused on team play and grouping tactics, and, all campers can participate in the open hockey session in the evenings.
"We also just finished a cute iv,500-square-foot weight room. It's got to be one of the biggest weight rooms in Minnesota. I don't know of any in the Brainerd lakes area that'south as big equally this one, and I'chiliad really proud of information technology. My wife came upwards with the idea ... and we built a beauty," he said.
The tranquility surrounding the camp "enhances each camper's concentration level and also intensifies the level of anybody'south awareness and appreciation for the wonderful wide variety of fun-filled recreational activities and world-class hockey didactics," according to the Jensens.
"Nobody else uses our rink but our campers. Well-nigh rinks you get to, whether information technology be in Breezy Point or Brainerd, they're renting the rink to other people and other entities and other groups. Hither, nosotros reserve the rink exclusively for our clientele. That's a actually cool feature," he said.
"Everybody and everything here is self-contained and hired by Sandy and I, and we really have pride in running it well, so the fact that nosotros got a beautiful lakefront. We got 64 acres on the lake. ... The water is clean and about every solar day we're about the but boat on the lake."
The Jensens said they take great pride in developing "a wide variety of training programs that emphasize fun and inspire enthusiasm, forth with focusing on building a positive cocky-esteem."
"Nosotros get kids from all over the earth actually, and some kids come up from a large metropolis, maybe New York City, and they've never fifty-fifty been to a lake like ours, so the lake activities become more important sometimes for kids than even the hockey grooming," she said.
He said, "Nosotros have bonfires every night. If you are on a college campus that'south running a hockey camp, you can't have a bonfire in the center of a higher campus. Nosotros can take the kids fishing, and they tin catch a big, 4-foot northern pike. We've got a miniature golf course here, too."
Other camp amenities include: a dry-land grooming center, a soccer field, rink-side condos, cabins, tree houses, apartments, classroom, shooting range, tennis courtroom, dining hall
pro shop, private beach, dormitory and more that campers' families can enjoy.
Child's play
2 of Eric Kueker'southward youngest children-6-year-one-time Jase and 8-yr-old Sarah-went before this year to the Heartland Hockey Army camp. It was their starting time time, according to Kueker of Verndale, and they belong to the Northern Lakes Youth Hockey Association.
"Nosotros wanted to send them both to campsite considering we noticed the kids that get to any hockey campsite seem to be a lot better than the kids that don't go to military camp during the summertime. They seem to accept more skill and are quicker on the ice or what non," Kueker said.
The association supports and serves youths in the communities of Aitkin, Backus, Breezy Point, Crosby, Crosslake, Deerwood, Ironton, Jenkins, Pequot Lakes and Pine River.
"Nosotros asked around or different people who they'd recommend because there are a lot of different camps in Minnesota, and what I got from most of the people I asked was Heartland was ane of the best camps in the land," Kueker said.
"Most people said how pleased they were with the staff and the coaches at Heartland, and the fact that it wasn't merely high schoolhouse hockey players helping 1 adult charabanc the kids. It was actually people who played on a more professional level."
Kueker said he found the camp to be laid out well, the supervision was practiced, and the ice hockey rink was beautiful with a lot of extracurricular activities, and then those were amidst some of the reasons he chose Heartland and entrusted the Deerwood army camp with his children.
And there are plans to build new dormitories, authoritative offices, a dining room and possibly another ice rink, according to the Jensens, which will merely serve to attract more children and their families.
"My kids loved the camp. In fact, my little boy cried when it was over. He didn't want to go home," Kueker said.
"He got to fish in between all the hockey sessions, and that made him happy equally a clam. And my daughter loves to swim, so they got to go down to the lake a couple of times a day in between their skate sessions and then they had a blast. We're going to become back next twelvemonth."
Factbox
Business: Heartland Hockey Camp
City: Deerwood
Number of employees: Near 50
Trivia: In 2013, idiot box star David Boreanaz, with a host of successful series-"Buffy the Vampire Slayer"- "Angel" -"Bones" and currently "SEAL Team"-talked nearly his experience at Heartland Hockey Camp in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer. A longtime hockey enthusiast, Boreanaz said: "One of the best experiences I've had in my life was taking my son Jaden to the Heartland Hockey Military camp [in Minnesota] concluding summer," he says. "It's a boy'southward dream - all mud and smells and mosquitoes. But they have a peachy rink. For nine days, fathers skate with their sons. You live in a dorm with them.
"We're going dorsum, only this year we're getting a treehouse cabin."
Source: https://www.brainerddispatch.com/business/progress-deerwood-ice-hockey-camp-is-fun-for-all-olympians-dream-keeps-growing
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