Bulgaria, Albena, 25th-30th July 2018
The participants in this year’s summer camp (players, coaches, young instructors and officials) were from five different countries: Armenia, Bulgarian, England, Netherlands and Ukraine.
The opening ceremony for the XIII International Youth Hockey Summer Camp was held during the first afternoon of the camp in the Dobrudja hotel in Albena.
The first training session started just after the ceremony. The 56 players were divided into 6 training groups: 4 groups of outfield players, formed according to their age and experience, as well as 2 groups of goalkeepers. Each group had a designated pair of an experienced coach and a young instructor. The aim of the first training was for the participants to get acquainted with the coaches, the instructors and the rest of the players. It lasted for 1 and a half hour.
On the second day of the summer camp all the participants gathered at the pitch around 08:45 o’clock. The early morning session of the training started at 09:00 o’clock and lasted for two hours.
After the lunch, a special training session for the goalkeepers took place at the swimming pool of the Dobrudja hotel. The rest of the players had some organized beach games.
All the participants gathered in a conference hall in Dobrudja hotel later in the afternoon. The players were divided into 8 tournament teams. A coach was assigned to each of them. The head coaches explained the rules of the tournament. Each team received a certain amount of virtual money which they had to use in an auction for power-ups for the tournament.
The afternoon session of the trainings started after the auction with the warm-up. After that each team played two games. Day two ended with a match between the coaches and the young instructors. The result of this game was a draw.
The next day started with a training, followed by a lot of fun on the beach after lunch. An auction for power-ups took place in the afternoon. The most desirable and the most expensive power-ups for today were the head coaches Danny Berry and Jay Bijl, as well as Assoc. Prof. Antonio Antonov.
Despite the rain the matches of the third round of the tournament were played.
The finals of the EHF XIII Albena Summer Camp Hockey Cup took place on the 5th day.
Since some of the participants were leaving on the morning of July 30th, the award ceremony and the closing ceremony were held in the evening of the 5th day.
Each of the participants was awarded with a gold medal and a certificate for participation.
The Armenian group and a part of the Bulgarians left early in the morning on the last day. They could not take part in the last training session. A more relaxed training session took place on the last day of the summer camp. Two matches were played. The remaining participants left Albena around noon.