GearGeek is the world’s first online NHL equipment database.See what every active NHL player is using on the ice right now – sticks, gloves, pants, skates and helmets. You can sort by brands, teams, positions, stat leaders and more.GearGeek is free to …
Drill:1. Place O in each corner with a puck2. D starts in front of net and skates toward one of the O3. When he stops and transitions, the O drives the net and they play 1 on 1 until a score, puck freeze or D clears the puck4. D then picks another O an…
I’ve been asked a lot over the years what I look for in a player during evaluations. After watching my son during various AA & AAA Ice try-outs, I’ve been thinking more about this topic and wanted to share a bit of what I look for and some ot…
HockeyShot has a new line-up of training aids and I have been slowly testing and reviewing all the new products. “The Dangler” and the Mini Dangler are among two of the new stickhandling training aids released that are designed to help hockey players improve their hands.
What is the Dangler?
The Dangler is a pretty straight forward product, think of it like a souped up row of pucks. The Dangler is designed to give you an obstacle to practice stickhandling around, under and over
Why not just use a line of pucks?
Sure a line of pucks is cheap, but the problem with a row of pucks is that they won’t sit still. Every time you hit a puck it will slide down the ice and it can be quite annoying when you are trying to work on your dangles and you have to re-make your obstacle every time you hit it. This is especially true for coaches!
A product like the Dangler lets you spend more time practicing and less time trying to set up a drill.
How is the Dangler different from other similar products?
The first product in this category that came out was the Sweet Hands. I never did a full review of the Sweet Hands on How To Hockey because it just seemed too simple. I thought most people could put together something similar with stuff they had lying around the house, but the Dangler has a few notable features
Lighter and more affordable than the Sweet Hands
The only product in it’s category with moveable center legs
Built in retractable spikes allow it to grip the ice and stay in place during on ice drills
Video Review and Test of the Dangler
Is it worth it?
The Dangler is fun to use on the ice, but I remember doing the same drills and moves with a line of pucks or a snow shovel as an obstacle when I was a kid.
If you are on a budget and want a product to help you develop your skills I would suggest saving your money for something like the new Extreme Passing kit or a radar gun. You can use household items to practice stickhandling around.
If you are shopping for something like this – I do like the Dangler better than the Sweethands, and I would say it is comparable with the X-deviator from X-hockey products.
Author: Geoff Winchester – G24Hockey.com (full bio at bottom of article)
I am lucky to have had the opportunity to work with a number of NHLers training their bodies and minds to ensure they can handle the demands of their job and perform optimally every night. But I learn from them way more than I teach. It is for that reason that I am writing this, I want to share with you one of the greatest lessons I have learned from these guys: the importance of game preparation and a solid game day routine. In the end, preparation is the key to reaching your goals, fulfilling your potential and, most importantly, giving your team the best possible chance of winning every night.
The Three Pillars of a Pre-Game Routine
There are three pillars to a pre game routine: Nutrition, Physical, and Mental. Each pillar has it’s own set of principles that must be followed, but they intertwine and work together to ensure one’s mind and body are in the best possible state to compete.
What is the best pre-game routine?
The best pre-game routine is one that will make you feel unstoppable, the one that will change your game! Unfortunately there is no one routine that works for everyone, building a pre-game routine is all about fulfilling the principles of performance with food and exercises that what work for you.
Below is a road map that outlines what a pro’s game day routine is like with respect to the three pillars. After reading it, head to g24hockey.com or the app store for access to 14 actual pro game day routines where you can pull what you like from each player to build the routine that works for you. Each pro shows you what they eat when they eat it, their actual warm-up and cool-down, and their mental approach to the game.
How to Prepare for a Hockey Game
The steps below will give you a template for preparing for a hockey game. Remember that this is how pro’s do it, if you play at a rec level you can take a few bits of info to help where help is needed (stretching, nutrition, etc)
Night before
Mental: the mental approach to the night before a game varies from player to player. Some like to go to bed with a clear head, so they choose to read or watch a movie, while others like to think about the competition and the job they have to do the next day. Some players go as far as visualizing themselves playing the game.
Do what makes you feel comfortable and allows you to have the most restful sleep possible.
Physical: Pros take their sleep very seriously, even though their schedules can be erratic because it is crucial for recovery and performance. The hours of sleep before midnight are better than those after, so get to bed early if possible.
Nutrition: For this meal pros consume a lot of vegetables, high amount of protein and slow acting carbs. This combination helps the recovery process from any physical demands encountered that day and it also helps keep the immune system strong.
Morning
Nutrition: Start the day with a large breakfast, but limit the fast acting carbs (no captain crunch, or white toast) because you will crash within an hour. If you are serious about performing make sure you start drinking water at breakfast and continue doing so all day long.
Physical: Pros don’t hit the snooze button, when it is time to get out of bed they wake up and start moving. Have a shower right away if you need to, just don’t stay in bed as it will mess with your energy levels throughout the day.
Mental: When playing at the highest level you start gathering information about your body first thing in the morning. To start the mental process, think about how you feel when you play your best and then commit to the rest of your routine which is designed to get you to your optimal place.
Afternoon
Pregame skate (physical): The pregame skate is the time where pros work out the kinks; they are testing themselves and their bodies, gathering information throughout. It is also a good time to begin focusing on skills they know will be called upon during the game. Pregame skates are light skates with lots of flow.
If you don’t have a pregame skate, do some sort of physical activity; stickhandle, go for a bike ride, kick a soccer ball. It is important that you get moving long before the puck drops.
Mental: Ask yourself how your hands felt, how your edges felt, did your body feel loose? Knowing that you are doing the right things to get your body ready to compete will get your head in the right space.
Pre-game meal (nutrition): Team pregame meals happen right after the pregame skate, usually at 12:30-1pm for 7pm game. This is where you need to get slow acting carbs in you, best sources are pastas and rice, and make sure to have some protein with it… And continue the hydration process.
Before the game
Physical: Just before putting on their gear pros complete a dynamic warm-up, most follow a same warm-up structure it’s only the exercises that differ based on their needs. The warm-up is essential for getting your body ready to go, if you warm-up properly your legs will be in the game before the first puck drops.
To get your body primed like a pro follow these steps:
body temperature increase
fascia release
joint mobility
neural activation
power production
Mental: At the beginning of the warm-up the mood in the dressing room is light and most guys have fun while sharing a few laughs; but as the warm-up ends it’s time to start focusing on the task at hand.
Most players, whether they know it or not, engage in visualization and/or focus techniques. The key to visualization and focus is to keep it simple, don’t overwhelm your mind; if you are thinking too much you won’t be able to react.
Nutrition: The last major part of fueling comes in the form of a snack, roughly 2.5 hours before the game; it’s easy to eat this just before heading to the rink or whenever they arrive. The snack should be high in slow acting carbs and easily digestible, this will allow for a quick start and to prevent a crash later on. A simple snack is a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter, or a muffin with fruit.
Post-Game
Nutrition: One of the most important meals is your post-game meal. It replenishes your energy stores, promotes muscle recovery and growth, and keeps the immune system high, all of which allows a pro to consistently compete hard the same way all season long.
As soon as you are undressed, consume a source of fructose (a sweet fruit like pineapple, or grape juice), then 15-20 minutes afterwards, have a full meal that is high in protein, slow acting carbs, and different colors of vegetables.
Physical: Cooling-down properly is essential to reduce the risk of injury and to keep the skating stride long. Stretch out the muscle groups that get activated during the game (e.g., hip flexors, low back) and pay extra attention to any body part that is excessively tight. Finish with a cold tub or some contrast therapy. This is what the pros do to get fresh blood/nutrients to the broken down tissues expediting the recovery process.
Mental: Dwelling on the past is wasted energy; however, learning from it can make you a better player. The advice I have received from the pros I work with is take a step a way from the game for the night and analyze your play the next day when your emotions are in check. From there, build on your successes and make sure you do not repeat the same mistakes.
Need Help with Your Pre-Game Routine?
This article gives you the basics of how the pro’s prepare for a game, but what will your pre-game routine look like? If you want some help building and customizing your pregame routine head to G24Hockey.com. Learn more about the app below, all the information is also available online.
G24 has a great app and web platform that allows you to get detailed access to Pro hockey players pre-game routines, meals, warm-ups, mental prep and more. They also allow you to customize your own pre-game routine based on the pro’s advice.
Geoff Winchester, MA (Performance Psychology), BSc. (Honours in Human Kinetics), Certified Exercise Physiologist Chief Product Officer
Geoff works closely with professional and amateur hockey players guiding their nutrition regimens, strength and conditioning plans, and mental approach to the game. His education combined with his hockey experience (tier 2 Jr A, CIS) has helped him thoroughly understand and manage the demand that hockey places upon a persons’ mind and body. He also has experience working with Canadian Special Forces; Canada’s elite soldiers, who he considers world-class athletes both mentally and physically. Geoff’s passion is helping people understand what they need to do to be their best and helping them develop and execute a plan to get there.
Seven percent isn’t bad. It depends on your point of view.
Consider weight loss. If I was seven percent lighter I’d weigh a svelte 162 pounds, not bad for a guy fending off love handles and sagging breasts. Seven percent is a strong return on stocks given today’s, last year’s, or last week’s, economy. A seven percent growth in my portfolio means I can retire ten years from now at 60, about seven percent younger than 65.
So, seven percent is good…unless it’s your hockey team’s winning percentage. We won one game and lost twelve this season, the best last place team in the league. Percentage wise, we lost more games than the 1974 Washington Capitals. They won ten percent of their games, going 8-67-5 in their inaugural NHL season.
I haven’t lost this many games since my bantam season. Our Colorado Springs All-Star team went 2-24-2 that year. We were hardly stars, but rather, star-struck by Denver teams loaded with talent. We were the Bad News Bears of our bantam league. I wore jersey number 1, with white tape stuck on my back, to make a 7. Our one competitive line lasted a period or two but that was it. The second and third lines were scrawny guys that got munched by larger opponents. Our season must have frustrated Coach Thiessen, who played for Denver University’s 1969 NCAA Championship team. After our final game Coach awarded me the Best Defenseman trophy but it was a shallow personal victory. He knew I played hard but it was less about commitment than it was about skating for dear life. I was 14 and hated losing. But oh, how I loved the game.
Flash forward 36 years. I now play in an adult in-line hockey league. Sunday is hockey night, an evening of pushing, shoving, and gnashing of teeth. But that goes away when I leave home for the rink. The rink, a former warehouse, is a chapel for hockey players. We confess our sins in the penalty box after skirmishes.
The in-line rules are different than ice. Each roster usually has 8 or 9 players and we skate four-on-four instead of five-on-five. We lost our first seven games because we only had six players. We’d sometimes beg, borrow and steal other guys who just finished the previous game. Our losses were mostly one or two goal games. We often played well but ran out of gas. Twice we were blown out. The referee skated to our bench during one of the massacres.
“Boys, we have an eight goal rule. You’re losing 7-0. Shall we call it a night?”
“No way, we got ‘em. There’s still ten minutes. Bring it on.”
“Suit yourself.”
We held them to 8-0.
Our sole victory was by three goals. I scored a hat trick, which not only surprised our opponents and my teammates, but me too. We were hot that night and had a full roster. Okay, so they had a barking Labrador in the net. A win is a win.
Every team in our league makes the playoffs, and we took our 1-10 record as the sixth seed in a double elimination tournament. It reminded me of when my daughter’s soccer team, the Sparrows, made the playoffs with a 0-8 record. No wonder they had a lousy record. How do you cheer a sparrow? The only things afraid of sparrows are bugs. Ironically, the Sparrows got hammered by the Crickets but all players still received trophies. I guess our politically correct society wants everyone to “feel good.” That just doesn’t seem right. It’s not real life.
The prize for our championship was more poignant than a trophy: a t-shirt, beers, and bragging rights. For our first round game we came out flat and lost by four. The loss discouraged us. We thought we were peaking.
The second round game was a hard fought battle. We hustled and passed well but lost 8-7. Afterward, we shook hands with our opponents, the eventual champions. They complimented our effort.
Compliments aside, losing at 50 sucks just as much now as it did when I was 14. But I’ll keep playing. Oh, how I love the game.
### Eric Miller skates with the Hamilton City Hockey Club near Chico, CA. Contact him at [email protected] or leave a comment. Or visit his site at www.etcguy.com
The forward stride is the most used movement in hockey, however many players neglect to try to improve it. Many players think that once they can skate and move forwards they are fine, however even PRO hockey players continue to work on their forward stride throughout their entire career!
The forward stride is the most used movement in skating, which means it should be the one you focus on the most. What can you do to improve your stride? Here are some areas that you might be able to improve
The forward stride consists of a push, glide and recovery. In order to have a smooth stride you should have good knee bend, a good push using your edges, good balance glide and knee bend in your glide leg and a fast recovery.
The key to speed is stride length and stride frequency. This is true when skating in a straight line, which happens with the forward stride. Once you get into higher level hockey we also want speed in lateral movement, crossover speed, pivots, agility, etc.
Common Mistakes with the Forward Stride
Stilt Skating
You know those guys who walk around on stilts at the circus? Some hockey players look like that on the ice. If you want better balance, agility and power, and a longer stride BEND YOUR KNEES!
Rail Road skating
This is when the player skates with their feet very wide apart and just barely pushes with each foot. The stride length is very small, the skates are both only using the inside edges, and there is very little balance or glide in the glide leg.
Heel kicks
You want your recovery to be efficient and quick. Many players skate like they run and kick their heels up before planting their foot again for another stride. This wastes time and energy. Your recovery should be almost straight back and under your hip for another push.
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The other day I posted a few drills the select team used in the warm-up phase of their practice. Here are a few of the drills they used during the skill assessment portion of the practice over the three days. As I said in the earlier post, the coaches also ran a number of 3×3 small area games and standard 2×1 or 3×2 type of drills that I will not include because they are similar to drills already included on the site. I did get the chance to run a few of these at my practice on Monday night and they work really well.
On December 26th and 27th I had the opportunity to watch the ACHA Select team practice in Albany, NY in preparation for their trip to Europe to play in the ACHA Challenge. My 22 year old son was fortunate enough to be selected to be a part of this team as one of the defensemen and I had to drive him to the facility in NY and decided to stay the night and watch all three practices. The team is coached by Mike Forbes a former NHL player and currently the head coach at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Coach Forbes has won a national championship and been selected as Coach of the year in his five seasons at GVSU. I was really interested to see how he would structure his practice sessions since he had just three sessions to get the team on the same page before they went off to Europe to begin play on December 29th.
The first session was mostly standard practice drills to get the team skating and to give him a chance to see what his team looked like. He also spent time walking through the defensive systems he would use. The second and third practice sessions had more detailed drills for specific areas of the team as well as 3 on 3 play. The practices were up-tempo and he kept things moving along at a very nice pace. The team looked good even as they were trying to find their way as a team.
In this first installment I’ll post the drills that were used in the warm-up section of the three practices. Drills that just had the team skating and getting the goaltenders ready. In part two I’ll post the other drills that I saw him run to develop specific portions of the team game. In all I picked up ten drills to post on the site and I also watched him run drills that are pretty standard type of 2v1 or 3v2 structured drills that I won’t post. Normally I don’t post anything that I haven’t run with my team first but since I was able to watch the Select team run through these drills I have a good feel for them and think they are solid drills for any of us to run with our teams.
If you are dedicated to improving your skating, shooting and stickhandling then balance drills and edge work drills are going to give you the biggest results. You might be asking why would a skating drill help improve my shooting and stickhandling? I am glad you asked
Drills that help a hockey player improve balance will also improve other skills because without balance there will be no power or agility. A shot that is taken while off-balance lacks the proper weight transfer to generate full power into the shot. An off balance player can not properly execute the correct chain to take a good hard shot
An off balance player will be easy to knock off the puck, and take the puck away from because as soon as they make a mistake in their footwork, or stumble for a second the player with better balance will catch up and take the puck away. A good stance, proper balance and good edgework is the base to good puck control
Oh yeah, you will also be MUCH better at skating!
Why Balance is important + 5 Balance drills
The ultimate goal for a hockey player is to feel just as comfortable (if not MORE comfortable) in your skates as you feel in a pair of sneakers.
More balance drills for hockey player
Shoot the duck – Players glide on one leg and squat as low as they can while keeping their other leg out in front
Squat – Glide and then squat as low as you can
Russian lunges – Players touch one knee to the ice, then the other in quick succession while pumping arms
Belly slide – player skates, jumps and slides on their belly, then gets up as quickly as possible
Spins – Players skate, go down on two knees and spin, then get up as soon as possible
Edge work drills – These are more advanced and push the players to expand their comfort zone
The Fundamentals of skating
Balance is one of the fundamental skills of skating, but there are many other building blocks that will help you improve. Visit our Learn to skate series to see our other videos and articles on the fundamentals of skating.
Want to work on your dangles, shooting and passing? The Extreme Passer Pro could be the perfect training aid for you! With this new rebounder from HockeyShot.com you can work on a number of different skills off-ice or on the ice
What is the Extreme Passer Pro?
Unlike the new Extreme Passing Kit – which is a rebounder and shooting pad in 1 – the Extreme Passer pro is a standalone pass rebounder that is designed to be used anywhere! All you need is a smooth surface like a shooting pad, smooth cement, or hockey training tiles. Of course you can also use it on the ice (like I do in the 2nd review video below)
Close-up Look
In this video I give you a close-up look of the Extreme Passer Pro and explain all of the features
Extreme Passer Pro Specs
Weighs 20 pounds – heaviest on the market to ensure it doesn’t get knocked around
Heavy duty HDPE plastic mold makes it very durable
Two bungee cords allow two people to use the rebounder at once
37″ front makes it the biggest rebounder on the market
Can be used on or off ice
Beveled front plate keeps puck flat
Bungee cords rebound the pucks better than elastic band rebounders
Can be used with pucks, Green Biscuits and other training pucks
Cool Features
I really like the double bungee cord feature! There is a bungee cord at the front, and a smaller one at the back. This means you can use both sides by yourself and come up with some creative drills, or two people can use it at once.
Another cool feature is the built in allan key that is used to activate the spikes in the footings. The spikes will help the unit stay put while being used on the ice.
How well does the Extreme Passer Pro Work?
I am very impressed with how well it rebounds pucks. The pass back is very crisp and for the most part accurate. The only time you will get a bad pass from the rebounder is if you give it a bad pass.
The only time I found it was challenging to work with the Extreme Passer pro was from a distance, and when I was skating past the rebounder and trying to give myself a give and go or bank pass.
Why not just use a line of pucks?
