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Hockey
is an intricate and
difficult sport. It
requires many skills, all of
which are separate and
distinct, yet inter-related
and mutually dependent.
To master each skill takes
years of practice and
dedication.
Some of
these skills include stick
handling, passing, shooting,
pass reception, offensive
play, defensive play, team
systems, etc.
Add to these other areas of
training for hockey -
conditioning (strength,
power, explosiveness, and
flexibility), nutrition,
rest, eye training, mental
awareness, and you can see
that becoming a "complete"
hockey player is a full time
job.
The one skill that I have
not mentioned is the one
tends to be overlooked and
too often underestimated.
Yet it is in actuality the
most fundamental skill in
hockey – skating. |
Little
can be accomplished unless you can move
FAST on the ice; with or
without the puck! From stop to go,
from slow to fast, when skating forward,
when skating backward, while cornering,
turning, transitioning. When fore
checking or when back checking. Even
when shooting (i.e., on the fly). Hockey
is now more than ever a sport of blazing
speed; a sport that requires players to
be masters of balance, agility, and
maneuverability (BAM), all while on a
platform as thin as a knife blade.
Players might be
great puck handlers, but if they can't
skate fast with the puck their
effectiveness is limited. What
many people do not understand is that
skating speed is largely affected by
skating technique, and that skating
technique is a separate, distinct and
indispensable aspect of hockey training.
Parents have
told me, thousands of times, "my
son/daughter is a great hockey player –
he/she just can't skate well enough."
This statement reflects a lack of
understanding of the sport. How
can one be a great hockey player if he
or she can't skate well (fast)??? The
sport involves movement. Those who
move at a turtle's pace inevitably get
left behind.
Coaches,
parents, and players subscribe readily
to the regimen of off ice training and
some of the other hockey skills, but
getting them to subscribe to the regimen
of a comprehensive and ongoing power
skating program can be like pulling
teeth. The premise appears to be
that with proper off ice training and
lots of sprint skating players will get
faster and their over-all performance
will improve.
In practices
players are put through a lot of "fast"
skating (often with horrific skating
technique) because coaches want them to
develop "fast feet". However, it's
quite possible (and all too common) for
players to move their feet fast and
still go nowhere (I call this going
nowhere fast). Keep in mind that
speed is a measure of distance traveled
in time, so for each stride taken it is
imperative to cover distance!
I wholeheartedly
agree that proper off-ice training
combined with sprinting on skates is
exceedingly important for developing
skating speed. But the missing piece to
the puzzle - skating technique – still
exists.
As I have for
over thirty years, I wonder why this
piece always seems to be left out.
Coach Jack
Blatherwick, a good friend and world
renowned expert in off-ice training,
says, "The process of becoming the
complete hockey players is a multi-edged
sword: Without proper technique, no
amount of off-ice training will help a
player optimize his or her skating.
On the other hand, without a good
physiological base of strength,
explosiveness, and muscular endurance
(in a good skating position) skating
instruction will have less effect."
"If an athlete
cannot get down on one leg to a good
squat position, cannot explode from
there, or cannot repeat it over and over
without fatigue compromising the
position – that athlete will never
benefit (as much as possible) from
skating instruction."
"However, without good skating
fundamentals, no amount of strength and
power will allow players to reach their
optimal skating speed."
Over the years I
have seen thousands of elite hockey
players struggle to skate faster, not
because they lack for conditioning, but
because they lack for correct skating
technique. They lack correct
technique because they lack the
knowledge of How To
perform skating maneuvers correctly.
They have grown up "skating" – but not
skating properly.
Some coaches
believe that players over the age of
16-18 can no longer change their skating
technique. This is just not so.
Some of my greatest successes have been
with college, major junior and pro
players. It's never too late to learn,
it's never too late to change (or at
least modify) technique. If it
was, the greats in golf and tennis
wouldn't spend so much time (almost on a
daily basis) "going back to basics" with
their coaches.
My power skating
programs (particularly those for elite
hockey players) include a broad base of
off ice training - plyometrics, strength
and power development, explosiveness,
muscular endurance and flexibility –
along with a broad base of instruction
in the intricacies of hockey skating.
Players work on skating technique as
well as conditioning on slideboards and
skating machines. Some on-ice
sessions involve sprinting (over-speed
training). But I always emphasize
that players must try to perform
properly, even while executing difficult
maneuvers at speeds that are out of
their (current) comfort zones.
Coaches need to
do everything possible to enhance their
players' speed. Encouraging them
to improve their skating technique, to
improve all the other hockey skills,to
participate in a well rounded off-ice
program, and then to incorporate sprint
skating (correctly), are ways to
accomplish this.
