Vikings Training

Another 'digest' post, aiming at recording all skating events that occurred during my hiatus period.

Winter has descended on Adelaide, with days being short, cold and of late, wet.  Which means little opportunity to go for an outside skate.  So, I have been going to Vikings trainings on Wednesday evenings at Gawler to both learn new skills and keep my skating reflexes somewhat in tune.  Of the first four sessions I have only had to miss the last (due a work commitment).  At this stage it looks like I'll be able to get to tomorrow's session.  Numbers have increased in the sessions I've attended, from about a dozen the first time to about thirty for the third.  I've posted separately on the first session.

For the second, we didn't divide into two separate groups.  Instead we started with some basic sprints to what on ice would be blue line, red line, blue line and red line and back, followed by two lap races (for which we did divide into three groups based on skating skill).  We then moved into a double horseshoe exercise, with a variation after a while of the passing player skating in towards the goal while the breakout skater went wide, forcing the alignment of the players to change (ie from passing to and collecting from the 'out' side of the breakout to its 'in' side).  I managed to slot a couple of my shots past Matt the Goalie.  This was a pretty enjoyable drill during which I continued to have a go at a powerslide inline hockey stop - managing to even pull it off several times for the first time ever!

We concluded with a mobile point to point weaving/passing drill, with one wing passing to the opposite and then moving across to take the other wing's spot while that player passes and skates to the centre (now on the original wing of the first passer) who either shoots or makes a final pass to the original winger as they cut in to goal.

13 sleeps ago (!) I went to the third Vikings training session for the winter season.  We again divided into two groups based on skill.  They were about equal sizes.  We did some short point to point passes between pairs of players, both players passing to and fro as they moved across the rink facing each other (ie one skating forward and the other facing backwards).  Then a skating drill around cones, laid out as two 'squares' near corners connected by two cones in the slot (one deep and the other low).  Then do it with a puck.  Then relay the cones so that there are deking stretches as well as turning points.

Then we spread out the cones in a large 'circle' and put between one and three skaters in the middle.  These 'defenders' were to disrupt the passing that was to occur between the remaining skaters as they remained stationary by their cones.  The ultimate goal of the defenders was to capture the puck and get it out of the circle.  The goal of the 'cone skaters' was to shoot it into the net once everyone had touched it.  It got interesting with three pucks going around and three defenders, one had to keep all one's senses on high alert and use one's voice and brain to avoid confusion (eg all three pucks being passed simultaneously to the same player).  I found this game tremendously fun.

For a final exercise we combined again with the 'advanced' group and played several games of 'red rover', with one goal and goalie in the middle.  Each game started with one player in the middle (besides the goalie).  This defender's goal was to get a puck from a skating player, and then get it in the goal.  If they did, that skater joined them on defence when the survivors skated back on their return journey and repeated the exercise. The goal of the skating players was to carry their puck across the rink and past the defender to the safety of the opposite red goal line.  If a defender took their puck from them, the skater would try and get it back, or at least prevent it being shot for goal.  If they got the puck back, they continued on their way.  If they didn't, they joined the defence.  Eventually everyone would be in the middle.  Always a fun game.  I made it into the last handful of survivors both times, each time having retrieved my puck at least once from a successful defender before eventually succumbing on a later attempt to cross.

I am looking forward to tomorrow night.

Inline 34 & 35