In a story titled Younger Athletes Are Going High-tech To Gain An Edge, today’s St. Louis Post Dispatch featured a front-page piece about NutriFormance, in Chesterfield, Missouri — a proud member of the Athletic Republic.

From a photo of a nine-year-old skating on Athletic Republic’s patented Hockey Treadmill, to the comments of a high school athletic director about the trend of specialized sports training for athletes ages 8-18, the Post Dispatch story advanced the positive point of view that a young athlete and his or her parents’ investment of time, hard work and money are often worthwhile.

According to Nancy Milward, athletic director at Nerinx Hall High School in Webster Groves, Missouri:

It started with soccer players doing Acceleration training to increase their speed. Now it’s worked into the basketball program, volleyball, field hockey. In a way, it’s no different than a kid going and taking voice lessons. Most of them are high-performance athletes to begin with, and they’re motivated to do more anyway.

Following a semi-final 4-1 loss to Canada on Friday, Team USA lost to Russia 4-2 today in the contest for the bronze medal. Team USA had beaten Russia 3-2 in preliminary round play, but just didn’t seem to have the energy to overcome Russia’s 3-0 lead after the first period today.

This is the fourth straight year TEAM USA has played in the bronze medal game, winning last year, after finishing fourth in 2005 and 2006.

Most TEAM USA players will now return to their college and university teams, with many having their sights set on advancing to the Frozen Four, to be held in Denver, April 10 and 12.

Team USA players from the University of Minnesota can also look forward to returning to their training routine on Athletic Republic’s patented Hockey Treadmill.

With wins over the junior national teams of Russia, Finland, Kazakhstan and Switzerland, Team USA has advanced to the semi-finals of the IIHF World Junior Championships on January 4 in the Czech Republic.

When they face off against Team Canada on Friday, Team USA will rely upon the firepower of James vanRiemsdyk, the top scorer in the tournament with 10 points. In fact, Team USA boasts the top-three scoring players in the tourney, which bodes well for the USA as they face a Canadian team seeking their fourth straight gold medal in the World Junior Championships.

In addition to a high-powered offense, Team USA may have another advantage over the Canucks – seven of the 22 members of Team USA have trained using Athletic Republic’s patented Hockey Treadmill and training protocols.

On Athletic Republic’s Hockey Treadmill, you train for the game in your own skates. The hockey-specific Acceleration Training program allows you to increase your on-ice speed, quickness and power by increasing your stride frequency, stride length and lower body power. Athletic Republic gives you the ability to outmaneuver the competition during game time.

Stay tuned for more news from the Czech Republic.