Knights Training

On Thursday night I packed my armour and went down the Ice Arena for a Knight's training session.  It went for about 70 minutes.  There were close to twenty players, all from Div I (Bombers), Div II (Knights) or the Ice Academy so the skill levels weren't as far apart as they have been during some sessions in past.  For a change I donned my North Vikings I.H.C. jersey, it fits quite well over full armour on the ice.

As is usual with Justine's sessions, our time was divided pretty evenly between an opening game of 'baseball' to warm up and kick the aerobic system into gear, a three player free form passing game, defence (1 on 1) and breakout (3 on 2) drills to push us anaerobically and a quick blast of 3 on 3 hockey to pull it all together.

My baseball game was good. 'At bat', I got the puck into the backzone and myself across the line before the 'fielders' were able to score a goal   In the 'field' I picked up several deep hits and passed them into the OZ (only to see the rest of my team waste the opportunity to pass - pass - score by lack of communication and puck chasing).

My passing game started poorly due the fact I wasn't looking properly before making my pass.  I got better once I started concentrating again.

My defence game was inconsistent.  I was not getting good backwards acceleration, letting simple shots through my legs, not keeping a close gap to the better skaters as they cut across the ice or put on the afterburners to get by me on the transition.  Encouragingly, I seem to be developing a reasonably active stick, stripping the puck from more of the skilled players than not (nothing glorious, but neutralised their attacks).  The trick to doing this seems to be quick pokes, keeping the central ice, not stretching or committing too soon.  What really pleased me was that, even with only four defenders (ie work-rest ratio of 1 to 1 due drills being run simultaneously each way), I had a lot of legs left and didn't tire at all.

My favourite moment in this drill was 'standing up' on a big fast skating forward who got mesmerised by his own puck as he cut across the ice on the forward diagonal.  All I had to do was apply a small amount of deceleration and brace myself before he slammed into me.  Quite legal, probably looked good (it drew a bit of applause from the sideline).

We then moved into the breakout/rush game, where D passes to W on the boards, chips it out to C as forwards leave the zone, then the three turn around and return into the zone but this time the D is trying to stop them.  I played in a forward line with Cam and a new Knight, Richard.  Cam played C (he wants to move there this season from D).  We actually got it together quite nice a few times, weaving and tape to tape with our passes, someone on net and someone else in the high slot for outlet passes and so on.  Quite funny when you think we're a defence unit.

For a final drill we played a few minutes of three on three.  I didn't get out there overly much as some of the younger ones seemed much keener.  It wasn't that I wasn't able, more that enjoyed watching.

My skates didn't cause major issues in either slippage or comfort.  They should be right for start of season.  Fitness and conditioning held up, I would have been in the top third in this regard.  My skating technique needs to sharpen up and I will need to adjust to the relative speed of play in contrast to inline.  Apart from that, pretty happy with the session.

Ice 28