Inaugural Junior Blaze Clinic in Brisbane

The Junior Blaze Program conducted it’s first-ever clinic in Brisbane at the State Hockey Centre last Friday, 24 September 2021. The afternoon began with outstanding attendance numbers of 66 eager junior athletes arriving at SHC dressed ready to be challenged and have fun. The clinic started with an exciting surprised announcement of special guest Savannah Fitzpatrick and Tim Howard 2020 Tokyo Australian Hockey Olympians joining the two-hour clinic. 

The program conducted both Storm and Heat skill sessions for all Goal Keepers and Field Players alongside each other on Field one. Both sessions were observed and supported by Junior Blaze Head Coach Nikki Taylor. Nikki is also the Hockey One Brisbane Blaze Women's coach who won a goal in the first Sultana Bran season, and has both years of playing and high-performance coaching experience. The Junior Blaze Program was lucky enough to have her speak and demonstrate drills on both sides of the field to all athletes, she also made sure all participants left with a smile on their faces. 

The clinic was a complete success with the coaching and guidance from Morgan Mathison, Brisbane Blaze #19 Midfielder lead coaching the STORM session and Australian Futures athlete and future Brisbane Blaze player Luca Brown running the high-intensity HEAT session. Hockey Queensland High Performance and Brisbane Blaze Players assisted Morgan and Luca throughout the session to keep the energy going.

Both sessions are tailored to better support junior athlete’s abilities, the STORM session is tailored for foundation club level players working on perfecting the fundamentals used within day to day in hockey.

The HEAT session is tailored to our competition levelled athletes to continue the development on their performance path, the intensive challenging training integrated skills and conditioning before training forcing athletes to work under fatigue. Luca had 45 Heat participant players running 5 x 50m shuttles before beginning the session. 

While heart rates were up Morgan began her session with a hand and eye coordination reaction game to get her storm participants critically thinking before picking up their sticks. This game showed a lot of concentration and the competitive atmosphere was flowing trying to beat Tim Howard. 

All staff and coaches ran an awesome clinic for all Junior Blaze Athletes. The session was lots of fun and even finished off with a sausage sizzle and blaze players signatures.

Big thank you to all coaches, athletes and parents the clinic would not be possible without you! 

Registrations are open year round for the program and we're looking forward to running the next clinic up north at a regional association. 

https://www.hockeyqld.com.au/athlete-pathways/junior-blaze-program/