Vikings Training

On Wednesday night I had opportunity to grab the car and get to inline training at Gawler.  So I did, managing to wolf down a bit of food before I left on the cruisy 45min trip with the tail of the rush hour. 

On a last minute whim I ended up bringing my new Blue Jackets sweater with me to 'break it in'.  It has elastic around the cuff at the wrist which makes it even harder than it should be to put on over elbow pads, but apart from that it was a good jersey.

Fashion commentary over, I got out to the rink as the session completed the evening's first drill - carrying a puck around the witch's hats in a deep slalom, with the cornering turns using the tightest turns the skaters could manage before accelerating to the next.  Straightline skating with braking turns (for those that could, the others of us making do with as tight a 'regular' turn as possible) followed, skating from the wall to the far blue line, back to the close blue line, on to the opposite wall, turn, return to the start point, repeat five times. Thirty second breather.  Do it three more times.  Heavy, but doable.  One other drill.  Then basically a thirty minute four a side shinny, with bench's of four and whistled line changes (excellent fun).

The shinny was great fun, and had enough of a smattering of player skills that there was heaps to learn from the experience, both in the doing and in retrospect.

An hour after I started it was time to change down with everyone else (we all generally use one of the building's large meeting rooms for this) and then hop in the car for the 40 min trip home.

There were a couple members from each of the Div 1 and 2 teams ('lower grade' players from Div 1 share the session with Div 2, their better skaters mixing it with the Premium grade players on Monday nights) at the session and two Div 2 goalies.  The higher proportion of Div 1 players meant it was a higher skilled session than had been the case most of last season.