Academy - room for work

For the third week in a row I made it to Ice Hockey Academy this evening, I picked up my newly sharpened skates after a friendly chat about the kids with the program director on the way in (gotta love Adelaide) and noticed that a few of the crew were already doing stretches in their gear while waiting for the juniors to finish and the zamboni to roll.  I got changed in time sufficient to do a few laps with my new edges.  Could certainly feel them biting the ice around tight turns, not overly confident with the outside edges in hockey stops.  About this time realised that Cory wasn't here.  Instead, Mick and an Adrenaline player (Jakob) were conferring with purpose and a bag of pucks.  'This will be interesting,' I thought.

And it was.  After a few skates up and down ice, stopping or transitioning on the blue lines, we self selected into beginners and intermediates.  The huge bulk (about 20) went intermediate, some such were a surprise to me.  Only one got pulled back.  From then, we were subject to the accented brief commands of Jacob, while Mick had his half dozen charges. 

Everyone was into the ethic of the a training session (which always makes it good) and Jacob kept us doing technical drills from one or two lines, varying everything forehand and backhand for one to three repetitions.  Used pylons a lot, and our trainee goalie.  Stickhandling, puck handling, passing, shooting.  All the basics in a new bunch of little drills that could practice on inlines easy enough if the weather was dryer and the sun stayed up longer. *sigh*  There's plenty of room for work on looser lower hand and softer hands more generally, leading to more fluidity in stickhandling, a harder shot, and more confident pivots.  But, learned a fair bit and could notice some improvements across the evening (always nice).    Worked up a fair sweat.

Good session.