Tonight was the regular Vikings inline hockey training at Gawler for us lower grade adult players. About fifteen present. I got there early for probably the first time ever, many thanks to the missus for restructuring her own day to give me the opportunity (car). The anthropologist in me finds the whole experience of what goes on in change rooms to be fascinating. But that's another post for another day. Let's perhaps say that it breeds a distinct sense of camaraderie amongst participants.
Which is good, because when accidents happen (and they do) and people get hurt, there's no aggro. Tonight, for example, Jai got tangled with another player and ended up in pain on the floor. And not getting up. With a sore shoulder. And he's a fairly tough bugga. But it was all very 'matter of fact' as an event, even when the ambulance crews arrived and there was a huddle of fellow players around his suppine body on the bench. Kinda reminded me of laying on of hands, or the grieving mary's at golgotha. Perhaps, looking back on it, the strangest aspect (though not at the time) was how seemingly natural was the fact that our training session continued on in the adjoining rink at the same intensity and almost the same volume as before, stopping only at the appointed time.
We did less drills than at the ice academy last night, but we did (a few) more repetitions for each drill. There's something to be said for both approaches, depends on the pedagogic emphasis you wish to achieve. I'm happy to trust my coaches on the matter.
Started with groups of three players, each group formed in a line between a player at each of the red lines at opposite ends of the rink and a skater in the middle. The middle skater would skate towards each of the opposing end players in turn, passing to the stationary player on the journey in and receiving a pass on the way out as they looped around behind them, then in a long figure eight to do the same with the player at the opposite end of the rink. They would then pass off to one of the stationary skaters who would then become the skater in the middle. Then there'd be another pass off and the third skater would have their time in the middle. Started reasonably slow, sped up as it went.
Then, with the groups of three holding their positions (one at each end and one in the middle), moved to a high tempo passing drill. Centre skater now just skated partway towards one of the stationary players, receiving a pass from them and then immediately passing it back before stopping and heading back towards the other stationary player. Repeat five times, then the centre skater swaps with one of the stationary players until all three have had a go at being centre.
Then, two groups on opposite ends of one of the goal lines, goalie in the goals between. One from each group departs, up the boards to the defensive zone before curling across and swapping sides with each other. One of the two skaters will have carried up a puck, passes it off to the second skater. They then skate back down the boards towards the goal line, with a pass from F1 to F2 for a shot on goal. After the pass, F1's job is to skate hard at the net for any rebounds. We all got to do this maybe four or five times. (It was during this drill that Jai was injured. I didn't see what happened, but saw the immediate aftermath with both skaters on the ice. My guess is that they collided).
Then, everyone into the middle for an description of a variation of 'red rover'. A goal was put in the centre of the rink, facing the side boards. The goalie was in the goal mouth. Two or three players started in a line across the centre. Everyone else had a puck and lined up across one of the opposing end goal lines. The puck carriers had to skate their puck beyond the opposing red line. The guys in the middle had to stop them, take the puck, and put it in the net. The skater who had been dispossessed would meanwhile try and get their puck back and get it to the safe zone behind the red line. If a goal was scored with a puck, that puck's original carrier joined the defenders in the middle. The successful puck carriers got to repeat the exercise, until there was only one left. Ganging up on the attacker, and passing to others for the goal was expected. The drill combined offence, defence, puck possession and protection, passing, 'two way play' (the sudden transition from carrying a puck to battling for it and defending the goalie). We did it twice, both times the coach being the last man standing. As it should be. Very great fun.
Then, about three penalty shots each. And finally we had to be quiet (presumably at the paramedic's request), so we just did some laps.
Great training.
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