Passing Work - Forward/Backward Movement

Drill:

1. Arrange cones in the pattern above
2. Player starts at top right and skates with the puck toward the Coach and makes a pass
3. At the next cone, they stop, skate backward and look for a return pass
4. Repeat through all cones

Focus:
1. Skate with your head up so you can see where you are making the pass or receiving the pass
2. Being able to skate forward or backward and make/receive a pass

Notes:
This is just a good drill for passing and skating and working with your head up. Coaches can always move around so they have to make passes to where they are located.

Related Drills:
Passing Work Lateral Movement
3 Man Weave

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Baking your new skates

Totally Baked

Buying new skates is great, isn’t it? Brand new, shiny, pristine blades with no dings, dents, or scuffs...awesome. Of course, all that new-ness comes with one drawback - stiffness. Like new shoes (only way worse), new hockey skates can be stiffer than a shot of Jack Daniels. Breaking in your new skates can take a while. For those who want to speed up the process, there’s an operation you can perform called Heat Molding - better known to players as “baking.”

The Details

Baking your skates will not only help break them in faster, but also get even the most stubborn of skates to give you a more comfortable and custom fit. Many believe you need a special kind of oven to properly bake your skates. While ovens designed for this are handy and slightly easier to use, you can actually do it yourself using the conventional oven in your home.

The Recipe

Ingredients: 2 eggs, milk, butter...just kidding. All you’ll need is your skates, an ordinary baking sheet, and your kitchen oven pre-heated to about 175 degrees.

Directions:

1. Grab one of your skates and loosen the laces all the way down with the tongue wide open, so you can slip your foot in very easily.
2. Place the skate on your baking sheet.
3. With the oven now pre-heated to 175, TURN IT OFF and place the sheet with your skate on the middle rack. Most skates should bake for 6-8 minutes. But check the box your skates came in. There may actually be a suggested time indicated on the label.
4. After 4-5 minutes, open the oven and feel the boot. If it’s soft enough that it can be shaped, it’s ready. If not, leave it in for another 2-3 minutes. Be sure not to leave the door open too long while checking. You don’t want the temperature in the oven to drop significantly.
5. Once soft enough, remove your skate from the oven, have a seat, and slip your foot in. Then begin tightening your laces from bottom to top as smoothly as possible. Meaning, try not to strain the eyelets too much. This can damage them.
6. Once laced up, sit tight for about 15 minutes. This will allow the boot to cool and mold successfully to the shape of your foot.
7. If you want to increase the width at all, feel free to stand up during this 15-minute cooling period. However, DO NOT walk around. This can both strain the eyelets and mis-shape the boot.
8. After 15 minutes, unlace the skate and remove your foot. Then re-lace the skate, set it in an upright position and let it sit for 24 hours. This will complete the cooling process.
9. Now go back to the beginning and bake the other skate.

If it’s so easy, why doesn’t everyone do it?

Some skaters like breaking in their skates the old-fashioned way - by skating, skating, skating. Others don’t want to risk screwing up the baking process and possibly ruin their skates. It’s understandable, I suppose. Though not a difficult process, one needs to be careful when baking. If it’s done incorrectly, this process can result in the pre-mature breakdown of your skates. So pay attention at all times and follow directions closely!

Seeing is believing

If you’re more of a visual person (like me), you might find a video demo more helpful than this article. There are tons of videos online demonstrating this process. The best I’ve seen can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBqRt701oZQ.

Reprinted with permission from Rink Management Services Corporation (http://www.rinkmanagement.com). Check out there blog (http://www.rinkmanagement.com/blog) for other great articles and follow them on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/RinkManagement) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/RinkManagement) for the latest news.

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Site Updates

If you haven't been on the site in a while, a few things have changed.

1. There are now Forums for my readers to get together and talk hockey.
   http://forums.inlinehockeydrills.com
2. Updated Menus that now break down and show you Drills and Skills to make it easier to find the drills you are looking for.
3. I've added a few Resources that I hope you will find useful like the Drill Diagrammer from M2Hockey and a few other links to some stores that I use from time to time.

Over time, I hope to give the site a new look and feel, but first up, I plan to get back into adding new drills and articles for you.

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Drill Diagrammer - Build your drills effortlessly

Kevin over at M2Hockey and HockeyShare.com has created a great new product call "Drill Diagrammer". I've been playing around with it since he announced and and find it by far, the easiest to use out there. The first drill I created, Russian Suicides, is one of my all time favorites. The drills all stay hosted on the site so you can access them from anywhere and you can share them on the site.

Over time, you will see all the drills on this site redone with this software and updated when I have time. You can try it out here or sign up for the premium version here.

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A letter to Parents

I know this article has been written more times than it should, but I'm going to write it again and encourage all of you to give it to your parents. It truly saddens me that I need to write this but I'm passionate about the game I coach.  This weekend, while coaching my 10U Hockey team, I witnessed the worst display of Sportsmanship/Parenting I've ever seen.   It was appalling.  While I'm not going to go into a ton of details, let's just say, I was shocked, embarrassed and down-right offended.

Parents,
I don't care what age your child is participating in, remember, they are always giving it their all.  Sitting in the stands, you may think that he's dogging it and not playing hard, but as a coach, I watch these kids and they give it everything they have. They play for the love of the game.  They play because hockey is a passion unlike any other sport.  Hockey is not a 'just for fun' sport that your kids plays because it's easy to get to and they can show up, run out of the car and start playing.  Don't get me wrong, they have fun playing it.  But my point is this, it takes way too much commitment, time and energy not to be playing for more. Practices as crazy hours and there are long drives to rinks and games. There is a lot of equipment that includes skates that they play on, so it takes effort and desire to play this game, it's not for everyone.

As a parent, you have rules.  Seriously, as a coach and a fellow parent, I'm telling you, you have rules.  Yeah, I know it's your kid, but there are boundaries. Lines you DON'T cross.  And I'm not talking about lines with a coach, referee or a parent from another team.  I'm talking about lines with your kids.
1. Don't climb up the glass to yell at your kid while he's on the rink or on the bench. It just makes you look like a fool.
2. Don't EVER open the door to the rink and call out your kid and make him skate over to you so you can yell and berate him in front of the fans, his teammates/coaches and the other team. It makes you look like a bigger fool.
3. There is NEVER a place for this in any sport. EVER.

A few simple things to remember while you are at the game:
1. They are kids. Plain and simple. Believe me, I know at times they can be frustrating, I have 2 of my own. They make mistakes. No matter how many times you tell them, they forget, they just don't want to, or possibly it just doesn't make sense.
2. They are NOT professional players. If they were, you'd be sitting in the luxury box eating ridiculously priced sandwiches and cheering with 18,000 other fans.
3. They are learning the game. I know these seem repetitive but they are. They are still learning. Think about when you were a kid. Did you get it all right the first time? The second? Probably not even the third. They are trying.
4. Notice the small things. He may not be the best scorer, but so what, it's a team game made one play at a time. Learn to notice the plays that made a difference. The blocked shot, the clear of a puck on a penalty kill, that back check that saved the tying goal. If you're not the Goalies parents, we seem to think the only thing that matters is scoring. As a coach, I congratulate the small plays and stress them more than scoring. Those are the plays that win games.
5. Your job is to encourage and congratulate them. The coaches job is to coach and help them get better, but the coach should also encourage and congratulate them as well. All they want to hear from Mom, Dad, Grandparents, Friends, Neighbors, anyone who comes to watch the game is "Good Job. You really played well." They understand the coach is there to not only encourage them but to coach them and help them get better. They want to make you, the parent, proud.

I've learned a lot in my few years of coaching and this weekend, everyone on the rink got a valuable reminder of why we are there at every practice, every game, every tournament and every moment of their lives for our kids. Pass this along to your leagues, your friends, your family.

*Thanks to Graham Acres @gacres99 for this great video.
http://youtu.be/rWjBvcfhRX0

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