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Janurary/February 2003
BECOMING A
COMPLETE HOCKEY PLAYER
What does it take to become
a “complete” hockey player?
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 in actuality 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.
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.
Skate Great Hockey,
Laura Stamm
Copyright, December, 2002
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