Knights Trainings with Neil

Last Thursday Neil held the Knights training session due Justine's absence.  Seven knights plus our goalie turned up, plus a handful of select others to make up the numbers.  A reasonable amount of the time was spent on whiteboard, explaining some basic concepts that needed coverage.  Also time spent on faceoffs, shooting technique, the passing game.  I found most interesting the demonstrations on separating the puck from opposition players along the boards in our non checking league.  Confirmed a few thoughts I have had, particularly about leading with the body in such situations and not the stick.  The session was not high intensity, though there was a good ten minute shinny at the end which used up any excess energy.

Also interesting to me was that, after the session, I had one player tell me how it was an 'okay' session but too much talking and whiteboard, and not ten seconds later another player tell me that it was a 'great' session and it was really good to have a few things explained.  To me, seems that different people benefit at different rates from different types of instruction.  Thus Neil's didactic approach was attractive to some, Justines Kinesthetic approach to others.  I like either.

On Sunday I and another Knight were one of several C graders who turned up at Neil's session for Justine's Div I team.  This time it was we who were helping make up the numbers.  The session was quite different to Thursdays (as one would expect).  This session seemed more 'active', and certainly was more aimed at offensive tactics and skills.  Mainly shooting, assistive passing, relative positioning in the offensive zone.  Neil pointed out to me that my otherwise reasonable shooting would benefit from me aiming my body towards the goal more accurately as I take the shot.

I finally managed to get my HR monitor working properly for an ice session.  As it again was not run specifically as a High Intensity session the readings don't quite reach the figures I believe I would have made with either Justine or at Inline but peak HR was still at 180 during the shinny at the end, averaged 135 through the whole hour.

Ice 40 & 41