Aspiring ‘Flying Frenchmen’ Attend Florida Hockey School

Sometime this winter approximately 70 kids and their parents, bundled up with protection from the Arctic winds blasting through Quebec, will board buses bound for the distant beaches and palm trees of Florida.

The parents will pack the usual Florida fare -- suntan lotion, bathing suits and beach umbrellas. Their children will pack something few people have ever brought--ice skates and hockey sticks.

It’s all part of a master plan by Josie and Jacques Campeau to build up their fledgling hockey school in Sunrise, Fla., a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, by importing boys enrolled in hockey schools in Canada for 13 days of fun, sun and ice hockey.

The Campeaus plan to start a full-time hockey school early next year in Florida and hope news of the northerners coming south to play on ice will spur some interest.

Josie Campeau says many parents avoid winter vacations to keep their sons from missing hockey. Opening a hockey school in Florida enables the parents to take the family away from the frigid temperatures without cutting into their sons’ hockey development.

“There’s a lot of people in Quebec that want to go on vacation in the winter time and can’t because their children have hockey here,” Campeau said. “So some mentioned to us, ‘Why don’t you open a school where it’s warm so we don’t have to miss hockey school and can still have a vacation,’ ” she said.

The cost of the trip for parents and one child is $2,300, which includes a round trip bus ride, along with the 13 days in Fort Lauderdale.

Campeau said despite the long bus ride, the trip is a bargain. “If you count the airfare, it’s much cheaper,” she said. “They’re going to be on the bus for two days, but it’s worth it.”

Sandy Stone, whose 16-year-old son Kory will be making the trip to Florida this winter, agreed it is important the budding young hockey players not miss too much ice time.

“It is (worth it),” Stone said. “Especially if you’re someone who is into hockey. Kory’s been playing hockey since he’s been 5 years old.

“If a child gets away from hockey in the winter for a couple weeks, it hurts his skating. They come back from being down in Florida, or wherever, and you’d be surprised, they’re behind the other kids ... two to three weeks off the ice hurts them.”

Kory Stone said playing hockey in Florida is a lot different from playing in Quebec. Stone lives in Champlaign, N.Y., and played hockey in Florida once before. He said he is looking forward to returning to Florida this winter.

“It’s like a vacation, but it’s still like a training camp,” he said. “It’s a vacation from cold and rainy weather. You get to get a suntan for a change.”

Duane Bibeau, 14, who also lives in Champlaign and played in Florida a few years ago, will make a return trip.

“I thought it was going to be something different, especially to be playing in a different type of weather,” he said.

Campeau says that after the boys from the hockey school leave, she and her husband will concentrate on making their program a year-round hockey school.

“We have booked December and January and slowly we’re going to turn it into all year round,” she said.

While hockey is basically a foreign sport in Florida, Campeau expects her school and the sport to catch on.

“I’m pretty sure there will be a lot of local interest,” she said. “We want to get involved with the Florida residents and the schools, and I’m pretty sure some are going to be interested.

“Some are fed up, they’re tired of playing football and baseball, so why not try hockey.

“We had to do it (open the school), because all over North America they have hockey schools and teams and leagues, but not in Florida. So I said, ‘Why not Florida?’ They have baseball all over, so why not hockey?”

Bibeau also hopes the sport will catch on in Florida.

“I really hope they do make a success of the hockey school, because I think hockey should be spread out across the United States,” he said. “Florida and California too.”

Of course, a major advantage the school has is the ease with which a can be coerced into paying for a family vacation that includes hockey and sunshine.

“That’s the nice part, getting a vacation,” Sandy Stone said. “You know what the winters are like.”