Breakfast Club, Summer Week #3
One goalie, eighteen skaters, two instructors, and one sheet of ice. Sounds like a perfect equation for escaping the heat wave, if you ask me. Not that anyone was asking me. Well, I did get asked something, and I gladly said "yes", but that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here is hockey. Calling it "hockey" and making it actually be hockey are sometimes two different things. That's why we haul outta bed at o'dark thirty. To make ourselves look more like hockey players every week. Even if the scouts will never be calling us.
We warmed-up our goalie with a leading and following skater, two nice low shots on net, which then continued as a one-on-one down the returning lane back to the other end. Defensively, the object of the game, always as well as the object of this drill, was to maintain a proper gap. Too much of a gap, and you're just giving the ice away. And no one, especially me, likes to just give it away. If there's too little of a gap, you're bound to get beat if the offensive opponent is even the slightest bit faster at skating forward than you are at skating backwards. And no one, especially me, likes getting beaten either. Sounds pretty demanding, and yet divinely simple, all wrapped up in a nice neat little package, doesn't it?
When we broke into our two groups, Lyle had us working on quick "touch" passes and Ryan had us working on one-on-one battles. In the one-on-one, the players were starting from cross-ice ends (sides?) of the blue line, so defensively the object was to head-off the puck carrier as quickly and effectively as possible. And offensively, the object was to get that scoring opportunity shot. Which might mean skating like a bee-line and crashing the net, but might also mean using changes in speed and direction to get the defender to over-commit. Working on quickness versus anticipation, it's all in the positioning, hockey fans.
In the touch pass drills, the emphasis was on being quiet. Not because Lyle's coffee hadn't quite kicked-in yet and he was feeling a bit groggy still. Nope, quiet because less noise means you're receiving the pass instead of risking bouncing that puck back off your stick. Square up to the incoming pass, hands away from your body, stick blade flat on the ice, with just enough downward pressure to avoid having the pass "ooze" out from under your stick, while allowing the puck to be cushioned to deaden the recoil. Sounds easy?
In between all of this, I think Lyle was hoping for the part of Coach Herb in the remake of "Miracle", because we did a whole lotta stops and starts. Stops and starts. Stops and starts. There's nothing quite like mini-ladders when it's already 85 degrees at 7am and so humid that you can see the air molecules. I'll blame the stops and starts on Ryan, seeing as Scott was no where to be found (or blamed), and running us into the ground is otherwise so uncharacteristic of Lyle (cough, cough...). Joe remains on the injured reserves, so he's safe from me blaming him for the moment as well. Credible deniability. Or incredible agreeability. Take your choice. Either way, make sure you're got your head up and your eyes on the goal.
We warmed-up our goalie with a leading and following skater, two nice low shots on net, which then continued as a one-on-one down the returning lane back to the other end. Defensively, the object of the game, always as well as the object of this drill, was to maintain a proper gap. Too much of a gap, and you're just giving the ice away. And no one, especially me, likes to just give it away. If there's too little of a gap, you're bound to get beat if the offensive opponent is even the slightest bit faster at skating forward than you are at skating backwards. And no one, especially me, likes getting beaten either. Sounds pretty demanding, and yet divinely simple, all wrapped up in a nice neat little package, doesn't it?
When we broke into our two groups, Lyle had us working on quick "touch" passes and Ryan had us working on one-on-one battles. In the one-on-one, the players were starting from cross-ice ends (sides?) of the blue line, so defensively the object was to head-off the puck carrier as quickly and effectively as possible. And offensively, the object was to get that scoring opportunity shot. Which might mean skating like a bee-line and crashing the net, but might also mean using changes in speed and direction to get the defender to over-commit. Working on quickness versus anticipation, it's all in the positioning, hockey fans.
In the touch pass drills, the emphasis was on being quiet. Not because Lyle's coffee hadn't quite kicked-in yet and he was feeling a bit groggy still. Nope, quiet because less noise means you're receiving the pass instead of risking bouncing that puck back off your stick. Square up to the incoming pass, hands away from your body, stick blade flat on the ice, with just enough downward pressure to avoid having the pass "ooze" out from under your stick, while allowing the puck to be cushioned to deaden the recoil. Sounds easy?
In between all of this, I think Lyle was hoping for the part of Coach Herb in the remake of "Miracle", because we did a whole lotta stops and starts. Stops and starts. Stops and starts. There's nothing quite like mini-ladders when it's already 85 degrees at 7am and so humid that you can see the air molecules. I'll blame the stops and starts on Ryan, seeing as Scott was no where to be found (or blamed), and running us into the ground is otherwise so uncharacteristic of Lyle (cough, cough...). Joe remains on the injured reserves, so he's safe from me blaming him for the moment as well. Credible deniability. Or incredible agreeability. Take your choice. Either way, make sure you're got your head up and your eyes on the goal.
posted by Suburban Hockey @ 5:45 PM
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