Caps Introduce 1,200 DCPS Students to Skating At Fort Dupont Ice Arena

The Washington Capitals helped lead, encourage and instruct more than 1,200 DC Public Schools (DCPS) students in how to skate at Fort Dupont Ice Arena in Washington, D.C., from March 14 through March 19.

Participants included fifth and eighth-grade students from 30 DCPS schools. On March 15, fifth-grade students also participated in street hockey activities at Fort Dupont.
The initiative is part of a partnership between the Capitals and DCPS that launched in 2016, when the Capitals began to introduce hockey to more than 48,000 students across 111 schools through a multi-week street-hockey curriculum. The programming was funded primarily by the National Hockey League's Industry Growth Fund (IGF) and became a core unit in the physical education curriculum.

Since 2016, the Capitals have provided each elementary, middle, and high school P.E. teacher in the city with hockey skills training from the Washington Capitals community relations and youth hockey staff. In addition, the team provided schools with a full set of branded street hockey equipment specifically designed for their students' age group.

The Capitals and DCPS also developed a curriculum for teachers to use in the street hockey program based on the USA Hockey American Development Model. The Fort Dupont event marks the next phase of the initiative, which is transitioning from street hockey to ice hockey.

Fort Dupont Ice Arena is the only full-size indoor ice arena in Washington, D.C., and the Cannons are the oldest minority youth hockey program in North America and the oldest ice hockey program that is a member of the Hockey is for Everyone™ initiative. The program's goal is to teach young people discipline, self-esteem and a sense of purpose and to offer an incentive to excel academically