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 .
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