Winning Your One-On-One Battles

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Winning Your One-On-One Battles
By Greg Siller
Nov 6, 2004, 15:17

You will see many one-on-one battles during the course of a hockey game: A one-on-one battle is simply where one player—either with or without the puck—tries to defeat his or her sole opponent. In fact, you can expect to see about 500 one-on-one battles in a typical 45-minute stop-time game! Divide that by the 12 players on the typical rec league team and that’s more than 40 battles for you alone!

One-on-one battles are the individual contributions toward the team game and help make hockey an exciting sport. Where do these battles occur? They take place everywhere on the playing surface. They can occur during face-offs, breakouts, after a shot and during forechecks.
What does it take to win a one-on-one battle? You need to know what to do and when to do it. There are two overall one-on-one strategies you should use when you want to defeat your opponent: one for when your team is on offense and the other for when your team is on defense.

On Offense
When your team has possession of the puck your strategy should be to move the puck into the offensive zone and set up a scoring opportunity. During the course of moving the puck into (and around) the offensive zone, the defensive players will (or at least should) be trying to get the puck away from you and your teammates. To win offensive one-on-one battles, you need excel at three individual offensive skills: protecting the puck, stickhandling and passing.

Figure 1

Protecting the puck means using your body, stick, the net or a teammate to keep defenders away. This is accomplished by positioning the puck away from the defender so it is more difficult to steal. The second skill mentioned, stickhandling, allows you to skate with the puck and move it around the playing surface. When stickhandling, you will use some puck protection techniques as well as your speed and agility to win the one-on-one battles. To be effective, you've got to keep your head up most of the time so you can see what opportunities you have and what opponents are near you.
Passing is an excellent way to defeat an opponent. Two passing techniques designed to win the on-on-one battles are the give-and-go pass (upper portion of Figure 1) and the bank pass to yourself (lower portion of Figure 1), in which you pass the puck off the boards, skate around the defender and then pick up the puck after you have defeated the opponent.

On Defense
When the other team has control of the puck, your only role is to regain control of it. To do this you need to cover your opponents and force the puck carrier to get rid of the puck. To win defensive one-on-one battles, you must master three individual defensive skills: stickchecking, playing the body and covering the passing lanes.
Stickchecking is a technique used to knock the puck off an opponent’s stick or keep that opponent from gaining control of a pass. Two techniques are the sweep/poke check and the stick lift, which will be discussed in detail at another time.

Figure 2

Whether you play in a checking or non-checking league, playing the body provides you with the opportunity to control the movement of the puck carrier and force him or her to get rid of the puck. No matter where the puck carrier is, you should try to force that player towards the boards or a teammate. Doing this will force the puck carrier to stop, retreat, try and get by you, pass or dump the puck. If that player passes or dumps the puck, or tries to get by you, you have an opportunity to gain control of the puck. If that player stops or retreats, you have, at least, slowed the offensive attack.

Finally, covering the passing lanes prohibits the offensive team to move the puck anywhere it wants to. Your responsibility is to maintain a position between the puck carrier and the player you are defending (as shown in Figure 2). This can be a difficult task, but if you are successful, it will eventually frustrate your opponent and force him into making a bad play (allowing you to regain control of the puck).

To make sure that you are effectively contributing to your share of the 500 one-on-one battles each game, improve these six individual offensive and defensive skills and watch your team improve.

Greg Siller, author of Roller Hockey: Skills And Strategies For Winning On Wheels