Back to Basics: Skating

My last few posts really focused on skating.  Obviously skating is a key part of the game.  If the kids do not have the fundamentals down, they will struggle in the game.  They need to feel comfortable on their skates.

Every practice should begin with some warm-up skating: (5 minutes)

1. Have them skate (clockwise) along the boards the entire way around the rink
2. Make sure to stop them and have them skate the other way (counter clockwise) so they get used to turning both ways.
3. As they hit a line, have them transition to backward to the next line and then transition forward.

Once they are loose, put them on the goal line and work on some speed/skill type skating: (10-15 minutes)

1. Skate hard to each line (blue, center, blue, far goal line) and make a hard stop
2. After a complete stop, make a quick start and onto the next line
3. Focus on good starts and stops

Reminders:

1. Review with them good techniques for each start and stop.   
2. This is a fast paced, quick direction change game.  The better they are at stopping quickly and getting their feet moving again, the more they will dominate the game.
3. It's OK to fall as you are learning. Just make sure you get up quickly and back in the play.
4. As they are working on stopping, give them a particular side to look at on every stop.  That way they get used to stopping in both directions.  If you don't, they will always stop in the same direction and this will put them out of the play at times.

With any drill make it fun.

Read More

Skating - Tight Turns

Drill:

1. Starting in the corner
2. Players skate each dot then perform a tight turn around the dot
Focus:
1. Players should bend their knees and get low in the turns
2. Quick cross over when completing the turn to accelerate

Notes:
Add a puck to make players focus on stickhandling while making tight turns

Read More

Skating – Race for the puck

Drill:

1. Split players into 2 groups in each and put in each corner
2. Players start by skating backwards to the first cone then forward to goal line (or cone) then backward to last cone.
3. Pick up puck and take it to the goal and shoot

Focus:
1. Skating skills both backward and forward
2. Transitions from forward to backward
3. Stickhandling & shooting

Notes:
This drill can be done 1 of 2 ways:
1. Individual to focus on skating, stick handling and shooting
2. Foot race against other skater for the puck

Read More

Skating - Quick Starts & Stops

Drill:

1. Players start at one cone and skate as hard as they can to next cone
2. Come to complete stop before quickly starting to next cone
3. Continue through cones to end

Focus:
1. Quick starts and stops
2. Face the same way (far boards) so they can work on stopping in both directions

Notes:
One variation is when they hit the middle cone, make them skate backwards to the cones and stop.

Read More

Practice Plans - I need a practice plan?

As I'm building my list of drills and items I want to set up here, I realized how far my practice plans had come.  Here is what I showed up with Week 1 (left) and by mid-season (right)..

As you can see, they became much more detailed and offered diagrams to help visualize the drills.  Over time, I will talk more and more about practices and tips I have for those, but for now will over up a few suggestions:

• Plan out your practice time best you can.  You don't want to be figuring out while on the rink what the next drill is and having players stand around.  Bored players will get in trouble.
• Be flexible. Even if you think you have the best practice plan in place, have alternate drills on your sheet.  Drills that you think will work great, may have your players standing there staring at you like you have three heads.
• Have you practice plan on your whiteboard and keep it close at hand.
• Don't be afraid to listen to the players for variations of the drills.  Sometime when they ask questions about what they are doing, it gives you ideas for other ways to perform the task.
• HAVE FUN!  While you need to practice well, make sure the kids are having fun and enjoying the time on the rink.

Thanks to Ducky Restauri for the layout for a much improved practice plan.

Read More

Welcome to Inline Hockey Drills

As a new coach for an Elementary Inline team, I found my biggest struggle to be what to work on in practices and knowing what drills would help to develop the skills of the young players on my team. Through the help of a few experienced coaches and a lot of late night web searches, I built a nice practice plan.

While I know I may not know everything, I want to share my experiences with others and hopefully they too can develop a winning program. My plan is to share out drills that I commonly use. Each post will contain a drill contain the following:

1. Name of the drill
2. Picture of the drill
3. Steps to complete the drill
4. Focus of the drill
5. Notes

With this approach, you should have a good understanding of what is involved, what you are trying to accomplish and notes about other variations of the drills.

Each drill will also contain 'Labels'. These labels will allow you to easily search my site if you are looking for a specific type of drill to work on.

Feel free to comment on the drill, ask questions or offer up your own drills. I'd be more than happy to add them to my site.

Read More