Knights Training

This evening Justine took a group of Knights and friends for a training session at the Ice Arena.  Close to twenty showed up.  They varied in skill from hockey academy rookies to youngsters verging on A Grade.  I would have placed myself somewhere in the middle of the pack, though that was probably not justified by performance.  I say this because I could compare what I know I am capable  of against the actual performance of others, what I could do against what they did.  I ranked myself favourably in comparison to quite a few that outwardly appeared to be fairly equal to me, mainly because I haven't touched the ice more than a half dozen times over the last five months whereas many of the others are on it several times per week.  Whatever.

Drills included a 'baseball game' for a warm up (plus ten push ups) followed by ten minutes of simple skate technique; forwards, backwards and transitions.  Then the 'defence game' (when I played a few rounds as defence and the same as a forward).  Then a few 'body bouts', with the puck on a faceoff dot, a defender in the circle and an attacker trying to 'break in'.  Then a three on three 'basketball style' shinny to wrap things up.

No great moments for me, more a feeling a basic competence and potential usefulness.  The work I've been doing this off season, limited almost entirely to strength, endurance and fitness, has certainly freed up my play to some extent.  I will have to step up the off-ice training a bit, though, if I want to be able to play hockey games with such a noticeable improvement evident throughout the game.  And, of course, skating and stick skills need to be sharpened up considerably.

My skates were not an issue, perhaps for the first time.  Although I wasn't skating at full power I was still being pretty agile.  Previously I would have had my boots sliding out from under me on several occasions through the session.  This time, all good.  Similar with the pain perspective, I was totally unaware of my boots for 90% of the time I had them on and I didn't have sore feet when I took them off.  The original cotton Bauer laces that I put back on might be making the difference, combined with a more refined approach to tightening them.

Ice: 27