Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Jack Eichel: "I'm Spending More Time in the Weight Room"



Josh Cooper from Yahoo's Puck Daddy interviewed Boston University freshman Jack Eichel. I found the comment below to be interesting.
Why the NCAA route? What about college enticed you? It had to be more than just taking classes?

I grew up in Boston and watching Hockey East and the Beanpot, so it was always my dream to play at a school like BC or BU. I never dreamed of going to Quebec and playing for a team there, so I guess that’s first and foremost is this is my dream to go here. And then looking at the pros, a lot of people say it’s a disadvantage that I’m not playing as many games.

But I can look at it as an advantage of I’m spending more time in the weight room. There’s a lot more emphasis on each game. Everything is a lot more detailed if you’re playing 40 games in comparison to playing 80 to 100. That’s one thing. And I just thought the college game was better for me. I had played a few years of junior and I didn’t think another year of junior was the best route. I felt I needed to go challenge myself again against older, bigger and stronger competition, where it would challenge me night-in, night-out more than I believe the CHL would. I think on top of all that I was able to get the experience of going to college. Living in Boston. This is everything I’ve wanted, so it was kind of a no-brainer.
One of the benefits of playing college hockey over Major Juniors is you get more time to develop physically and get bigger. There's a lot of weight room time. You're not playing a full 75-80 game schedule.   One of the things that I have noticed since I started covering UND hockey is how a player transforms in four years of hockey.

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