Knights and Friends training

On Thursday night we had a training session, with Knights from Div II, Bombers from Div I, an equal number of A and B grade Blackhawks, and some hockey friends from all the grades.  There were even a couple tyro players out for their first time beyond the hockey academy.  Quite a smattering of ability and skill, and a pretty enjoyable evening where I think I ended up learning a few things (always a good thing in a training session).  I made sure I brought my new Bauers on this occasion!

The first half of the hour was spent doing traditional drill style training, with C Graders up one end of the big ice and the rest down the other.  We had Tommy in goals from the Knights (Nicko was in goals for the higher grades).  They'd been going a while by the time I got there.  The simple initial drill was a loop while carrying the puck from the corner up through centre ice and back for a shot on goal.  I think I only got to do four or five, and managed to hash most of them up in one way or another.

Then we did about fifteen minutes of our breakout drill, with a forward line passing it into the 'defence zone' for collection by a defender.  The forwards would then reset facing 'up ice' for the breakout pass from the defender and the centre would curl up for the quick pass and breakaway.  The forwards then skate up past the blue as though moving onto the attack.  Meanwhile, the defenders (who'd started the breakout) now change roles to defence and set themselves to take on the forwards after they in turn have looped through centre ice and now come back in an attempt to get into the zone and put the puck in the net.  Very good fun.

The pacing of the drill was pretty quick, and it required a bit of consideration to make it work, so there was plenty of opportunity for keen participants to do drill after drill until they needed a rest - and in both forward and defence roles if they so chose.

I spent much of my defence time in the slot, harassing anyone that came there that shouldn't, trying to contain people in the corners, putting a bit of pressure on a shooting point, trying to intercept or disrupt the cross ice passes of the forwards.  I need to make my time in an otherwise vacant slot (important role, dominating this space) more productive - perhaps varying my height on the ice and keeping an active stick in order to restrict passing lanes, retaining occuption of the shooting zone at the same time?

I played forward a few times, setting up one goal with a screen against resistance, and at least one other with a micro pass to a team mate.  It was fun, but perhaps not as challenging as D.

The second half of the training hour was spent on a largescale shinny, with teams divided by jersey colour (white v the rest).  It was good fun to be out there when there were good players motivating around, and a true pleasure to find oneself facing a fellow C grader on the rare occasion it happened.  As a D, I spent much of my time in a containment role, delaying and disrupting until help arrived.  My best moment was in the last play of the evening, when I poke checked the puck off a centre and prevented the 3 on 1 from forming beyond the blue line.  The move was almost identical to, but not as clean as, the similar check I made in the third period of last Sunday's game against the Sharks.  On both occasions I chose my moment to close the gap and simultaneously struck with my stick.  Both times too quick to actually think about what I was doing.  The benefit of training on the weekend?!

Good fun session.

Ice 9