BY SCOTT TAYLOR Photos by Jeff Miller and Sport Manitoba
When a coach or trainer can claim to have taught skills and fitness to Jonathan Toews, Travis Zajac, Nolan Patrick and Travis Hamonic then it’ s quite likely you can trust his knowledge.
Neal Prokop, a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and Sport Performance Specialist at the Canada Games Sport for Life Performance Centre with a keen eye for developing hockey players, had an impressive hockey career in his own right. After playing five seasons in the Western Hockey League, Neal went on to McGill University to play for their U SPORTS team while completing his Master’ s degree in Exercise Science. His competitive playing career ended in 2016, after a season of playing professionally in the Australian Ice Hockey League.
Jeff Wood, a Sports Performance Specialist at the Canada Games Sport for Life Performance Centre has more than 20 years of athlete training experience. And he’ s not only trained and coached Toews, Hamonic, Patrick and Zajac, he’ s also worked extensively with Canada’ s National Women’ s Team and many of its Manitoba athletes-- Bailey Bram, Jocelyn Larocque, Brigette Laquette and Jenelle Kohanchuk.
NOVEMBER 2017 | GAME ON | 87