Breakfast Club: Spring Hockey II
A little light on the turnout today. But not to worry - Joe, Scott and Lyle kept us quite busy.
First, some deking. Find a partner, one defends while your teammate practices drawing to the forehand, drawing to the backhand, passing it under your stick, whatever it takes to get it past the defender...which shouldn't have been that hard, especially since the defender's stick was upside down..and they were standing still.
Yep, shouldn't have been too hard.
Next, some passing. Find a partner, spread out cross ice, line up facing shoulder to shoulder and pass on your forehand. Hard. Tape to tape. Now, open up and face your partner. Same thing. Now, one-timers. Now, do it while traveling backwards and forewards, always facing your teammate.
Doggoned if we weren't beat and sweating...just from passing!
Moving on, we broke into three groups.
One was with Scott, working on stationary one-timer shots from the left, right and center key. If your body isn't in the right position to start with, how exactly is it that you think yor one-timer will be that smooth catch, load, release that it needs to be?
The middle group, with Lyle, was working on passing around the circle. Just like tightening lugnuts, the puck was passed around the circle in a star pattern. One puck. Then two at a time. Then three. Four. All the way up to where everyone's passing and receiving at the same time. Heads up! Pass to where they need it, or else the whole rotation falls apart.
Meanwhile, Joe had the other end working on shooting on the move. Skate eight's around the face-off circles, catch the pass as you're coming around the top and release all in one fluid motion. Sometimes you're catching where you're already in good positon, but the other half of that eight you'll be catching on your fade. And passers: send it crisp and to where the skater is going to need to be. Timing and accuracy matter.
All of that sounds so easy. Yeah, easy...not.
Great skate, though, despite my lingering inadequacies. I haven't pulled that kind of sweat in a while.
As if all of that didn't leave us sweaty enough (yeah, Tom, it's barely 7 am, and shhhheee-ooot, we've got another half hour to go), we moved on to some lane skating. Up, accelerate around the center circle and full speed to the other end. In batches of three. The first hundred or so rounds, we avoided bowling for teammates. But as the gas tanks started hitting vapors, the edges weren't as solid around those accelerating turns. Lyle said wiping out was good, though, because it meant you were pushing out of your comfort zone. But then he had a Fruedian slip, and let us know that falling was just plain amusing, too. Yeah, yeah, I'm here to learn and also to dish up your weekly fix of entertaining moments. Win-win all the way around, eh Lyle?
Let's put a bow on this day by finishing with some zone games. Greens trying to score westbound, yellows shooting eastbound. If you were in the west and east ends, you were either trying to score or trying to prevent it. The middle zoners were the transition team, snagging that which was intentionally or accidentally cleared, and sending it back into the appropriate scoring zone for their color team. Three pucks in play at all times. Every two to three minutes or so (or, in Lyle time, every 45-60 seconds) rotate zones.
Besides being Kirkless, my morning was a success. I made sure to dish sufficient portions of sarcasm upon Lyle, enough so that he hopefully didn't feel deprived by Kirk's lack of attendance. It's an obligation that I take seriously.
Keep your head up, and your eyes on the goal.
First, some deking. Find a partner, one defends while your teammate practices drawing to the forehand, drawing to the backhand, passing it under your stick, whatever it takes to get it past the defender...which shouldn't have been that hard, especially since the defender's stick was upside down..and they were standing still.
Yep, shouldn't have been too hard.
Next, some passing. Find a partner, spread out cross ice, line up facing shoulder to shoulder and pass on your forehand. Hard. Tape to tape. Now, open up and face your partner. Same thing. Now, one-timers. Now, do it while traveling backwards and forewards, always facing your teammate.
Doggoned if we weren't beat and sweating...just from passing!
Moving on, we broke into three groups.
One was with Scott, working on stationary one-timer shots from the left, right and center key. If your body isn't in the right position to start with, how exactly is it that you think yor one-timer will be that smooth catch, load, release that it needs to be?
The middle group, with Lyle, was working on passing around the circle. Just like tightening lugnuts, the puck was passed around the circle in a star pattern. One puck. Then two at a time. Then three. Four. All the way up to where everyone's passing and receiving at the same time. Heads up! Pass to where they need it, or else the whole rotation falls apart.
Meanwhile, Joe had the other end working on shooting on the move. Skate eight's around the face-off circles, catch the pass as you're coming around the top and release all in one fluid motion. Sometimes you're catching where you're already in good positon, but the other half of that eight you'll be catching on your fade. And passers: send it crisp and to where the skater is going to need to be. Timing and accuracy matter.
All of that sounds so easy. Yeah, easy...not.
Great skate, though, despite my lingering inadequacies. I haven't pulled that kind of sweat in a while.
As if all of that didn't leave us sweaty enough (yeah, Tom, it's barely 7 am, and shhhheee-ooot, we've got another half hour to go), we moved on to some lane skating. Up, accelerate around the center circle and full speed to the other end. In batches of three. The first hundred or so rounds, we avoided bowling for teammates. But as the gas tanks started hitting vapors, the edges weren't as solid around those accelerating turns. Lyle said wiping out was good, though, because it meant you were pushing out of your comfort zone. But then he had a Fruedian slip, and let us know that falling was just plain amusing, too. Yeah, yeah, I'm here to learn and also to dish up your weekly fix of entertaining moments. Win-win all the way around, eh Lyle?
Let's put a bow on this day by finishing with some zone games. Greens trying to score westbound, yellows shooting eastbound. If you were in the west and east ends, you were either trying to score or trying to prevent it. The middle zoners were the transition team, snagging that which was intentionally or accidentally cleared, and sending it back into the appropriate scoring zone for their color team. Three pucks in play at all times. Every two to three minutes or so (or, in Lyle time, every 45-60 seconds) rotate zones.
Besides being Kirkless, my morning was a success. I made sure to dish sufficient portions of sarcasm upon Lyle, enough so that he hopefully didn't feel deprived by Kirk's lack of attendance. It's an obligation that I take seriously.
Keep your head up, and your eyes on the goal.
posted by Suburban Hockey @ 8:30 AM
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