Colorado Avalanche Participate in Future Goals for STEM

The Colorado Avalanche participated in community activities after their Tuesday practice, including Future Goals and TeamFIT.

The Colorado Avalanche are participating in a STEM course that’s based in hockey. The course uses hockey to help teach foundational math and science concepts, such as force and energy, rates and ratios, and states of matter.

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math. Many schools have started to focus on these topics to better prepare students for careers in those fields. The courses start as young as kindergarten and continue into high school.

Yesterday, in honor of Tyson Tuesday, the team’s two Tysons — Tyson Barrie and Tyson Jost — visited Sunrise Elementary for a Future Goals appearance. The appearance was presented by Crescent Point Energy:

The Hockey Goals program was launched by the NHL and the NHLPA. The courses are web-based. However, I imagine having actual hockey players, especially NHLers, there to help deliver the course makes them come more alive.

Here’s Jost helping a kiddo out with the program:

The purpose of the programs is to expose students to real-life STEM concepts through hockey applications. For example, the Pittsburgh Penguins similarly participated in the program last year and produced this video:

You can see them using STEM concepts as applied to making ice for the rink, skating, and conditioning for hockey. Such courses would definitely appeal to students who function best with experiential-based learning.

Side note: Andy O’Brien also trains Nathan MacKinnon and Tyson Jost. He’s trained Erik Johnson in the past as well.

According to the Future Goals website, sparking student interest in STEM is essential because the world is facing a shortage of employees with STEM skills, perhaps largely because they lose interest in such subjects before tenth grade. Such courses aim to get them excited.

Next time I think the Avalanche players should visit a middle school, since that seems to be a crunch time for the courses. However, the visit to Sunrise Elementary definitely made for some heart-warming pictures:

As part of the event, Jost and Barrie answered questions related to hockey and themselves. They talked about who their hockey idols were growing up. No surprise, for Barrie it was Rob Blake, which is also the reason he wears the #4. Also no surprise, for Jost it was his grandfather, Jim Jost, most infamous for crying whenever his grandson succeeds at hockey:

There were also some trivia and math-related questions:

Spoiler alert: Team Barrie won. (He also won the Swedish Flyaway — that’s a lucky man.)
The day ended with some goofy photos:

Slightly off-topic but noteworthy, Sven Andrighetto — who just got put on the injured reserve list — and Mark Barberio headed over to Lowry Elementary. Colorado Avalanche strength and conditioning coach, Casey Bond, joined them to present a TeamFIT event. The purpose of these events is to educate kids about healthy eating and exercise. They include a fitness workout and team appearances.

Here’s the one that went on today:

I find it interesting that Sven did this:

What is this lower body injury that keeps plaguing him?!

Anyway, Future Goals — and TeamFIT — are just a couple of the many community activities that the Colorado Avalanche participate in. Here is where you can find out more about these activities.