PT - Queen's Birthday Shooting

This afternoon I returned to the local schoolyard for a bit of puck shooting on the outdoor netball court.  Weather was in the low teens and cloudy.  I was gone almost two hours.  Although the recent construction is now complete and the place has been cleaned up, there was a considerable amount of detrius on the court.  It varied from the usual bark chips and small gravel, to bits of used gaffer tape and a lot of dirt.  So, I cleaned up my goal circle and removed the most obvious rubbish on 'my' half of the rink and got into it.

Did sets of 25 at 15', FH snap and wrist shots, FF snaps and Backhand.  Shooting score for each type of shot over 25 attempts was a modest 8/4/10/5.  I didn't concentrate on the raw Breath / stance / weight transfer / point / gaze aspect, but rather on what I note has been missing in the last couple Wheeler's games and at the Academy and the Shinny (in other words, it is a consistent observation), a bit of power.  I noticed that all the elements come into it anyway if one is to generate more force with the right focus.  Reasonably happy with results in this aspect of my shooting (though still not what I'd call a 'hard' shot, albeit reasonably quick).

Then, for something a bit different, I skated away from the goal through centre, peeled off to right or left, down the edge of the court to the '15 foot line', curl in towards the goal on a track parallel with the backboards, have a forehand snap shot once I've crossed the goal front.  I did 25 down the left wing, then 25 down the right.  My shooting score was 3 and 4 respectively.  In the 90' corners I took on my way towards the shot I practiced my puck handling to both fore and backhand sides.  The pace built up as I did the drill.

I became aware of the rink's natural asymetry. Curling across the goal front from the left wing put the puck on the opposite side of my body to the goal and on my forehand.  Coming in from the right wing, I had to end up trailing the puck behind me so I could swivel my upper body to face the goal while keeping the puck on the forehand.  In both instances, opening the hips during the weight transfer tended to glide me directly in towards the goal (ie another 90' turn in the sequence) directly in line for a rebound from close in.  Handy move.

When I had finished my 150 shots I decided to call it a day and skate home.  I could have stayed there longer but would have been eating into both my body's energy reserves and my time.  After the heavy load I put on my body last night and (hopefully) the academy again tomorrow, it was worth taking it that little bit easier today.