Academy - snappy session

Seventh week in a row, cold and wet.  Busy traffic.  Had been reading about nutrition and hockey conditioning yesterday, put a few ideas into place today (as I had the opportunity).  I have a lot to learn about diet, nutrition and the hockey lifestyle but even the tweaks I made today to my more regular routines had a positive impact both on the ice and afterwards.  This last point is important as I have another training session tomorrow (Vikings inline training at Gawler).

But I digress...

Tonight was definitely more oriented towards basic skills than anything more dramatic.  With no goalie and the numbers being what they were (about twenty), it was good that Mick was there to help out.  We began with a few warm ups, enough that I could safely stretch out my leg muscles before we gathered for the first set of instructions.

Then began about a half hour of basic skating exercises, beginning with doing laps, transitioning at the blue lines so as to be skating backwards between them.  Our collective pace and intensity was lacking, which brought a brief lecture from Corey - to always skate hard.  I think he must have heard someone grumbling about not using a puck yet (?!) because, after his critique on our casual approach he announced that 'boring skating' is the core of it all, and only when one is able to do all the necessary maneuvers at the fastest speed of which one is capable of (and then some) can one say that 'I don't need to do this.'  Which was all fine by me, as I love skating for skating's sake (as regular readers would know).

We then set off in pairs, racing with crossovers and tight turns in full circuits of all the faceoff circles a couple of times, then the same backwards.  No pucks.  Then it was about four back and forths from red to far blue line to near blue line to far red line up the ice, with stops and accelerations in between.  Then throw in backwards skating segments and do several more laps.

Then it got technical.  Simple end to end skating.  No emphasis on speed.  Outside edges.  Gliding.  Balance.  Extension.  Stability.  Weight transfer.  Under cut.  Cross unders.  Do it backwards.  Notice the improvement after ten or more minutes.

Half an hour has passed.  Gather a puck and meet in the centre of the ice.  Instructions being given, stray skater out at a goal playing with a puck, distracting.  Stray skater wanders over, Corey stops, is a little ascerbic in his comment to the stray skater, not happy Jan.  Snaps out, 'you stay still, don't move!  The rest of you, leave your pucks, skate a lap.  Hard.  Now!'  And off we all go and the poor stray skater probably feels like a real goose.

Regather in centre ice.  Play the puck protection game of everyone protect their own puck while skating within the blue lines, and try and knock the other player's over the blue line.  If you lose your puck, go and play puck protection in the outer zones.  Eventually there's only one left in the middle.  Do it all again.

Then, shooting.  Wrist shot, backhand, slapshot.  For the wrist shots, as there was no goalie, to miss the goal mouth from the blue line incurred a ten push up penalty.  I didn't have to do any, but felt sorry for some of my peers who had to do ten push ups again and again and again.  Being hockey players, they did it and didn't complain.  I think I missed one of the half dozen backhand shots we then did (concentrating on weight transfer).  For the slap shot, this was the first time I've ever been 'officially' shown how to do it.  I think my last of four attempts could be called a weak slapshot, so I guess there was progress.  I sure miss my summer shooting sessions in the neighborhood!

Finally, about ten minutes of a rolling battle drill at each end of the ice, involving groups in each corner and the coach in the centre.  A skater would race out from each corner, tight turn around the neutral zone dots and race back in towards the goal.  Meanwhile the coach had sent a puck somewhere into the zone.  The skaters race for it.  Whoever gets it will try and get a goal.  The other defends.  Next pair.  Around and around and around for about ten minutes.  We had four skaters in one corner to start with and five in the other.  I kept getting beat in the skating by a sheila who was at her first academy session but played in NSW.  I held my own (though not necessarily 'winning' very often) against the others I went against.  My speed was lacking.

End of session.  Good yarn with Old Timer Stephen afterwards while I munch on a banana and have a mandarin while cooling off in my gear, watching the next training session.

Just another night at the Ice Arena!