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

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Skating - Tight Turns

Drill:1. Starting in the corner2. Players skate each dot then perform a tight turn around the dotFocus:1. Players should bend their knees and get low in the turns 2. Quick cross over when completing the turn to accelerateNotes: Add a puck to make players focus on stickhandling while making tight tu...

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Skating – Race for the puck

Drill:1. Split players into 2 groups in each and put in each corner2. 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 shootFocus:1. Skating skills both backward and forward2. Transitions from forward to backward3. Stickhandling & shootingNotes:This drill can be done 1 of 2 ways:1. Individual to focus on skating, stick handling and shooting...

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Skating - Quick Starts & Stops

Drill:1. Players start at one cone and skate as hard as they can to next cone2. Come to complete stop before quickly starting to next cone3. Continue through cones to endFocus:1. Quick starts and stops2. Face the same way (far boards) so they can work on stopping in both directionsNotes: One variation is when they hit the middle cone, make them skate backwards to the cones and st...

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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...

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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:Name...

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