NEWS

Long Island City Ice is proud to announce an exclusive partnership with the Gotham Goalie Academy, who will be offering on-and off-ice goalie instruction in our brand new hockey training facility. The Gotham Goalie Academy was founded by professional goalie coaches Robert Kucera and Ray Smith with the mentorship of New York Islanders goalie NHL All-Star Jaroslav Halak. The academy will be primarily based out of LIC ICE in Long Island City and will be sponsored exclusively by CCM Hockey.

Coaches Kucera and Smith have over a decade of experience training goalies of all ages and levels in the Tri-State Area. Visit the rink's website to read their full biographies. Their goal at the Gotham Goalie Academy is to develop a specific set of skills to help our goalies react to any game situation and reach their full potential both as a goalie and an overall athlete. The Gotham Goalie Academy shares LIC ICE’s objective of improving overall athleticism, which has benefits in sports as well as everyday life. 

The Gotham Goalie philosophy revolves around the development of:
•    Strength, agility, flexibility, speed and accuracy
•    Skating technique
•    Good habits in early stages
•    Proper form of puck tracking and saving.
•    Rebound control and save recovery
•    Physical conditioning
•    Understanding the game 
•    Communication and teamwork.  

The Gotham Goalie Academy will have full use of LIC ICE’s rink, which features a sheet of ice on the ground level as well as fully equipped off-ice training facility upstairs specifically geared towards hockey players and goalies. We are currently finalizing the on-ice and off-ice schedules for our goalies at the LIC ice rink. A weekly spot at LIC ICE will be dedicated to the academy with the possibility of adding multiple weekly sessions. 

For goalies looking for extra workouts, opportunities to take shots at LIC ICE’s daily player clinics will be available. 

The first Gotham Goalie session at LIC ICE takes place this Saturday 03/12/16 from 10am - 12pm and you are all invited to join us in making history. We plan on welcoming our goalies to the facility, taking them through 45 minutes of off-ice introductory training session and an hour of on-ice instruction working on specific goalie drills and exercises. 

Please let us know if you are interested in participating and we will get back to you with details on how to register for the academy's sessions.

We are looking forward to having you on board and working with you.

Robert and Ray