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Partly Cloudy Islanders bring hockey clinic to East Rockaway
The Village of East Rockaway is teaming up with the New York Islanders to promote the game of hockey, sportsmanship and teamwork. Long Island’s only professional sports team will host street hockey clinics this summer with the help of the village’s recreation department.
Dates, times and locations for the clinics are currently being worked on, but Recreation Director Rick Kappel is glad the Islanders chose to launch their Isles Street program in East Rockaway. “There are tons of villages on Long Island that would probably love to do a program like this,” Kappel said.
The Islanders recently donated hockey sticks, balls, pads, nets, goalie equipment and instruction manuals to the village to help kick start the program.
“We’ve done stuff ball hockey clinics in the past,” said Michelle Winter, manager of amateur hockey development for the Islanders, “but there’s never really been an organized program that carries the Isles’ name, so this is kind of a jumping off point for us.”
Kappel said the recreation department was looking to start a roller hockey program within the village when he reached out to Winter. The National Hockey League sponsors a street hockey program, which led the Islanders and Kappel to begin discussing a partnership back in November.
Winter said her choice was easy once she found out Kappel and his staff was interested in the program. “Basically what we do is we provide equipment and we’re lucky that the guys that run the East Rockaway center are pretty experienced and know what they’re doing,” Winter said. She added that the instruction manuals the Islanders provided will probably not be needed, but most importantly the equipment will be put to good use.
“We have responsibility here, being the only professional sports team here on Long Island to grow the game of hockey,” Winter said. “We’re not the city, we’re not Connecticut, we have our own little niche.”
