philippe eko eel has, for better or worse, actually already been spending the offseason playing hockey, so there is not too much that he needs to do to ramp up. first he played in the international ice hockey federation world championships with team norway as he is a crucial part of their team and gets utilized extensively in their game plan. but then after that when most players take a break, philippe eko eel has to participate in the undersea games which is a series of competitions between various underseas species. philippe eko eel of course represents the eel team as he is a well known athletic eel but yeah they have a bunch of contests interspecies style like squids vs eels or barnacles vs coelacanths and the barnacles always do really poorly btw because they cannot move really. anyway this takes place more or less in between the end of iihf and the start of the pee season so philippe eko eel's ramp up is essentially just still playing more competitive athletics - not a specific type of training or practice, just keeping that long body moving!