From: dcchan@engin.umich.edu (David Chi Wei Chan)
Subject: More rollerhockey stuff
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 20:43:05 EDT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor


sinceSwe're sort of piecing together hockey tips in rec.skate, I dug up
a copy of an article regarding drills and a following article on hockey
sticks.

From: u8acb@ohm.york.ac.uk (Alex Barclay)
Subject: Hockey Drills
Date: 25 Jan 92 12:49:47 GMT


In <1992Jan24.143430.15892@ryn.mro4.dec.com> rice@gambln.enet.dec.com (Tim Rice) writes:

>I'm looking for some good puck control drills.  Not passing but controlling
>the puck, stick handling and shooting (placement).  I have some players
>that just don't seem to be getting the idea!  Particularly in front of the
>net, they're not putting the puck into the open space (mostly, can't get it
>up)

This brings back a lot of memories from when I was being put through
the ringer by my old coach. We never had one drill that satisfied all
of what you have mentioned but I'll attempt to describe the drills
that we used (and what was wrong with them). Maybe you can improve on
some of them.

For the puck control we tended to favour the road cone idea. Put some
cones in two lines. You skate around the cones on the outside doing a
large zig-zag. This is how the drill started to teach skating. Next
you take a puck with you. This develops the idea of closing the stick
over the puck (We tended to start slow then wind it up later). The
final mod, where we got the passing in was when you exactly the same
cone arrangement next to the set you already have. You now send two
players, the pass should be occurring at the closest point. If you
don't get it right then it's more difficult than most passing drill
because you're only at the closest point for short time.

We used to work the placement in with some tactical plays. The drill
went something like...

Take a complete line (5 + netminder). The two defense men are going to
change sides. The defense men start on the blue line, just outside
their home zone. The forwards start on the red line skating into the
zone. The coach used to shoot the puck into one of the corners. The
defense would go a get it while the forwards were heading into the
zone. The defense would then give the puck to one of the forwards,
depending on the particular breakout being practiced. The forwards
would then leave. When they got to center ice they would turn around
and come in 3 on 2 with the defense men now defending. This teaches
the passing and puck control in a manner that could more easily be
related to real play. We did the same drill for powerplay situation,
both 4 and 3 (we were a rough team) player situations.

The final point you ask is about placement. For this we came to the
knock around at the end of the practice the coach used to give the
netminder a rest and clip on some metal sheets to each goal. The metal
sheets had cutouts, top left (about 12" square) etc. The holes started
big but as we got better they would mysteriously shrink from week to
week :-)

	Hope this is some use. I think I'll stick to being a ref
though these days.

		Alex.

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 		^--- The cone arrangement I was bellyaching aboutbout.
Newsgroups: rec.skate