This report just in from Tad O’Had, our VP of Hockey … who is a big hoops fan too:

Basketball development was taken to another level this past weekend when Athletic Republic invaded Hoosier Country to open our seventh performance sports training center in the state of Indiana. The newest member of the Athletic Republic starting lineup is housed in The Fieldhouse of Merrillville, which features six full NBA-style basketball courts for clinics, camps, showcases and national tournaments. In addition, athletes are able to continue to raise their game to new heights with Athletic Republic’s scientifically proven training methods.

During the weekend’s Grand Opening April 17-19th, Athletic Republic – Merrillville was host to the Hoosier Invitational. Thirty-eight teams of 8th to 12th graders competed for hardwood supremacy in front of over 400 athletes, parents and coaches.

We couldn’t be anymore excited with our facility at The Merrillville Fieldhouse. The one-two punch of Athletic Republic and Fieldhouse is an incredible combination provides so many aspiring athletes with the very best in performance sports training and basketball development. Kyle Nettestad, Athletic Republic – Merrillville Owner and Operator

With Kyle’s entrepreneurial insight and passion for athlete development, the facility is sure to be a success. So much so that Kyle has taken his wealth of knowledge of exercise science and has applied it to his athlete development membership model, where Athletic Republic athletes will undergo a series of assessments throughout the year to specifically target the athlete’s strengths, weaknesses, overall development and progression. The athletes are then greeted one-on-one by Athletic Republic Performance training staff members, who will devise individualized training programs and cycles to allow the athlete to train safely, properly and assure the athlete will be rested and ready to peak at game time.

Our focus is to arm our athletes with the knowledge and know how that only professionals receive, whether it be nutrition, testing or just overall sprinting mechanics. Our objective at Athletic Republic  is to give our athletes the advantage and with our AR development model we are able to assure that the athletes train in a periodized manner year round, while taking in account the workloads of the pre-season, in-season, post-season and off-season. Kyle Nettestad

For More Information on The Fieldhouse of Merrillville and Athletic Republic  visit us at www.athleticrepublic.com or www.thefieldhouse-merrillville.com.
The Fieldhouse - Merrillville
899 E. 99th Ct.
Merrillville, IN 46307

Athletic Republic in Russian

In 1986 John Frappier, the founder of Athletic Republic, was invited to join the U.S. Gymnastics Team delegation in the U.S.S.R. for the Summer Goodwill Games. John quickly realized that America’s athletic training lagged behind that of the Soviets and began translating his experiences into better training plans for athlete development in the United States. Many of the training concepts John learned from the Soviets focused on over-speed training, plyometric training and athlete testing. On John’s return flight home, he devised new ways to train and new machines to test an athlete’s limits. Thus, the thinking behind Athletic Republic was born in Russia.

Twenty-three years later, Athletic Republic was invited back to Russia to provide our Athletic Republic Hockey Performance System and expertise to the city of Yekaterinburg and their city’s professional, junior and Olympic academy hockey players. The city of Yekaterinburg is considered a hotbed for young aspiring hockey talent. The city boosts two Olympic Development academies ranging for athletes 7-16 years of age – the Automobilist Authority and Automobilist Unost. In addition the town is home to one of the region’s elite junior programs as well as a professional team in the 2nd Division Russian Liga, the Yekaterinburg Automobilist. Over the years, Yekaterinburg has produced such NHL superstars such as: Alexei Yashin (Ottawa Senators, NY Islanders), Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit Redwings), Nikolai Khabibulin (Chicago Blackhawks) and hundreds of others to star in the Russian KHL and 2nd Divisions.

Russian entrepreneur Igor Balandin first approached Athletic Republic in the fall of 2008, after returning home with his son Ivan, an aspiring hockey standout. Ivan had spent weeks training in one of the Athletic Republic’s many Chicago-land facilities with trainer Tyler Bosch, and had seen incredible improvement in his skating. So much so, the head coach of the academy team took special notice that Ivan was clearly a stride ahead of his opponents and decided to examine the possibility of opening an Athletic Republic facility in Yekaterinburg further.  After researching Athletic Republic, and traveling to the U.S. to visit our performance sports centers in Libertyville, Illinois, Albany, New York, Stamford, Connecticut, and Chelsea Piers, in Manhattan, Igor was hooked on the concept of developing his very own center in Russia.

So, 23 years later the goodwill shown John Frappier on his trip to Russia comes full circle. State-of-the-art, patented equipment like Athletic Republic’s Hockey Treadmill, and scientifically tested and proven training methods offer hockey players in Yekaterinburg the best of both worlds.

“It is with great pleasure to bring an Athletic Republic facility to Yekaterinburg, Russia. The results that I have seen firsthand with my own son, and the fact that Athletic Republic has trained so many NHL stars is incredible – it’s an opportunity that I am excited to give back to the hockey community and help to provide a safe and effective way for hockey players to gain speed, power and efficiency.” –Owner Igor Balandin

Suffolk PAL National Champs!

At Athletic Republic, we pride ourselves on providing hockey players a program dedicated to “lighting the lamp”. Last week, the Suffolk PAL Junior “B” franchise took that to another level when they clinched a National Championship Title from the Central Penn Panthers with a decisive 4-1 win.

“Unbelievable,” was Head Coach Aleksey Nikiforov’s response right after winning the USA Junior B National Championship. “We were aware of how tough it would be and the boys worked hard to accomplish their goal.”

Suffolk PAL came into the USA Junior B National Championship as the fourth seed from the Metropolitan Junior Hockey League after losing in the Semi-Finals of the Keegan Cup to the Central Penn Panthers.  That would turn out to be their last loss of the season.

“This has been an absolute incredible experience for these young men. They have all worked extremely hard on and off the ice and when the battle was needed to be won they were well equipped,” said Jake Laime, Suffolk PAL Assistant Coach and Hockey Manager at BlueStreak, Hauppauge.

Equipped is an understatement. This team boasts the top three goal scorers in the nation, as well as the leading defensemen, and one of the finest coaching staffs in Junior Hockey with “Coach of the Year” Aleksey Nikiforov, Jim Wright, Jake Laime and GM Ron Kinnear. The team also is equipped with their own state of the art Athletic Republic Hockey Training Center, BlueStreak Sports Training.

“This is the moment we have all waited for. Since we first opened BlueStreak Sports Training four years ago at the Rinx in Hauppauge, NY, the overwhelming goal was to be able to provide the Suffolk PAL players with a state of the art training center. Being a fellow Long Islander. I wanted the best for these kids. They have the best coaching staff and the finest facilities, but I felt that they needed a training facility that could improve their on-ice strength, power, efficiency and overall conditioning,” said Matt Stack, VP of Operations at BlueStreak Sports Training. Read more

What a weekend!  Athletic Republic was out in full force at the first Football University camp in Dallas last weekend.  Over 170 high school and middle school athletes who are serious about football attended the weekend-long event.  As a former collegiate player, the opportunity I had to learn from the FBU coaches was phenomenal.  Former NFL standouts who are passionate about teaching kids who are passionate to learn is a winning combination! The athletes were incredibly focused and attentive to everything the coaches had to say, from the beginning to the end of the camp.  Every parent I talked to was extremely happy with the experience their kids had over the weekend.

Athletic Republic was fully integrated into the curriculum—from conducting all dynamic warm-ups, to providing solid tips on improving test scores and football movement skills, to administering vertical jump, standing long jump, short-shuttle, and 40-yard dash tests.  We used our new SmartSpeed electronic timing system with RFID technology to record the 40 and short-shuttle tests and captured Dartfish video with every clip.   The system performed flawlessly!  We were able to automatically upload the tests scores and videos to AIMS shortly after the event.  Each athlete will be able to access their scores in the coming week and select which scores and video they want to include in their Rivals.com profile.

All in attendance were intrigued by the system and loved looking at the videos.  Using the most accurate electronic timing available at every FBU event makes it possible for kids to truly see how they stack up to some of the best football players in the country—there will be no question about the accuracy of the timing as the same system is used at every event. Plus, recording video with each test allows the athletes to better showcase their skills to college coaches.  A video also gives an Athlete Republic trainer a means to fully evaluate the athlete and find ways to make them better.

I would like to thank Shawn Dassie, Jerry Hill and Kyle Foster from our New Braunfels, Texas facility for all their hard work at the event.  They did a phenomenal job along with Tanya Porter and Tad O’Had from our corporate team.  We are very excited about the next FBU in San Diego on February 13-15 and the rest of the upcoming season. Come join us at FBU—it’s a blast!

Steve Swanson
Chief Science & Technology Officer, Athletic Republic

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from or about Neil Clark (top photo) and Vladi Nikiforov (bottom photo).

With hockey season in full-swing, they’ve both seen the benefits of their hard summer of hockey training pay off. Here’s a story about Neil being called up to the AHL Rochester Americans.

Neil is possibly one of the hardest working athletes I have ever worked with his resilience, attitude and pure passion for the game makes him a leader on and off the ice. He has made incredible strides in his game and continues to move up the hockey food chain. – Tad O’Had VP of Hockey Athletic Republic

Utah Grizzlies Head Coach and Director of Hockey Operations Kevin Colley recently announced  that forward Vladimir Nikiforov has been recalled to the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers. The Grizzlies are proud to be the ECHL affiliate of the New York Islanders and their AHL affiliate in Bridgeport. Nikiforov, 21, was named an ECHL All-Star last week and leads Utah rookies with six goals and 12 assists in 29 games. He played four games with the Sound Tigers earlier this year.

Vladi Nikiforov did an incredible job this summer training, his persistence and attitude are outstanding and we couldn’t be any happier with his success. — Jake Laime BlueStreak Sports Training Hockey Director (A Proud Member of Athletic Republic)

The photo at left recently was posted on Habs Inside/Out–the online source for absolutely everything about the Montreal Canadiens. The title of the post is Getting Into Hockey Shape, and tells the tale of the Silver brothers bring Athletic Republic’s patented Hockey Treadmill to the Sportplexe Quatres-Glaces in Pierrefonds.

If you’ve ever wondered what hockey treadmill training was all about, this article is a must read.

Looking for coverage of last week’s U.S. Army All-American Bowl activities? Here are links to some of the stories from the San Antonio Express, which covered the goings on from start to finish:

All-American Bowl claims victory in all-star battle

Middle-schoolers take aim at first all-star glory

East quarterback takes advantage of all-star spotlight

Parents example inspires tackle

Q&A: Marshall Faulk

Athletic Republic CEO Charlie Graves

Like a kid in a candy shop, Athletic Republic CEO Charlie Graves proudly shows off his own U.S. Army All-American Bowl East Team jersey. He’s a little older than the 90 high schools seniors on the East and West teams, but he’s just as enthusiastic about being in San Antonio for all the U.S. Army All-American Bowl week activities, including the U.S. Army National Combine, the Football University Youth All-American Bowl and, of course, the U.S. Army All-American Bowl itself.

All three Football University Youth All-American Bowl games will be Web cast live on Sunday, January 4th on www.FootballUniversity.org, and the U.S. Army All-American Bowl will be televised on NBC Sports at noon (CST) on Saturday, January 3rd.

The new Brand Jordan football spot, Become Legendary, may only be playing on U.S. television sets, but, thanks to YouTube, it’s getting global exposure. So, too, is the Athletic Republic Super Treadmill that is featured early in the spot.

If it looks like the athlete in the spot is running awfully fast, he is–over 20 mph–and he ended up running at that speed for quite a bit longer than the typical short bursts an athlete would run during a training session at Athletic Republic. Seems as if the director got carried away just watching someone run that fast.

The newest Athletic Republic franchise opened in Libertyville, Illinois, this past weekend. The 6,000 square foot training space  offers sport-specific training programs for football, hockey and volleyball, within a 200,000 square foot facility that features two indoor soccer fields and eight basketball/volleyball courts, and attracts over one million athletes to come play or train each year.

But don’t take our word for what this facility means to the community, here are a couple of local news stories about Athletic Republic Libertyville: one is from the Daily Herald, the other is from the Libertyville Review.