A Message From the Founder and President...

Martin Maglay

The hockey school business is an extremely competitive enterprise. Unfortunately, the parents and players with stars in their eyes and dreams of future glory are ripe targets for those in the industry who are overnight hockey school owners and instructors claiming to be experienced professionals in this field.

Before investing in your child's training, research these individuals. Observe their on-ice skills and teaching behaviour. Question their ability to instruct and their philosophy on sport and life, and any long term goals they may or may not have concerning the direction of their hockey school. Unfortunately, it appears that with the growth in the numbers of hockey schools, anyone who can skate and shoot a puck is considering a career in this field. Buyer beware!

Hockey Tech International has been in operation as a full-time, year round school for the past 17 years. This school is my life’s dream and I believe the game of hockey is a sport rich with opportunity that reaches far beyond the obvious on-ice skills and team play aspect. Growing up as a hockey player/student in a communist country taught me a lot about goals, commitment, believing in one’s self, focusing on a dream, trust, fair play, and emotional and physical fitness.

I also learned the power of believing in your own innate ability to accomplish anything that you set your heart on. The communist/socialist community made it very difficult to be an individual, let alone have dreams. A young hockey player learned to keep his dreams to himself, but never stopped believing that one day the opportunity to change the path his life would take would present itself.

We ate, slept, and played hockey at the special school I attended for players. As a team we worked together, supported each other, respected our coaches and trainers, and learned never to give up. Too often these ideals are not evident in the North American young hockey communities! I played the sport of hockey because I loved the game and played from the heart, not from parental pressure, money or fame.

I learned a discipline from the training that has stayed with me throughout my life. My ability to focus on and structure my goals today continues to encourage me as I develop new concepts for my personal and professional life. It is these invisible qualities that I believe make an athlete so much more than just good at a sport, and it is these qualities that I look for when hiring my instructors and administration staff, and they are the same qualities that I hope to instil in our students.

Being the best you can be is not an easy accomplishment. It takes hard work, dedication and commitment to a dream. I believe that I understand the hurdles that must be cleared to take a path towards a goal, and through Hockey Tech International I am determined to allow each and every student the opportunity to know that he - or she - can do anything they set their minds to. Your children will understand this immediately as our student.

As an individual, I have traveled widely, am an avid scuba diver, skier, horseback rider, fly fisherman - and last but not least husband and father - who is still filled with a lust for life and sees summits left to conquer. But who I am and what I am stems largely from my youth and the game of hockey.

This is why it is imperative to me that Hockey Tech International permits every young hockey athlete the opportunity to discover their strengths and abilities... and that goes far beyond shooting the puck. Hockey Tech International is different. My instructor staff are superb and we are in this business for the long haul.

Over the past few years I have been disappointed in a number of the professionals who have come to my school for work. As a result they are not members of my elite on-ice staff. Some of these individuals have opened their own hockey schools, and today they are marketing toward your son or daughter.

You be the judge. "He shoots, he scores" should not be the ultimate goal of any hockey school! Hockey Tech International knows no rival.

Martin Maglay
President, HTI