I fly back to Providence on Wednesday for my senior year at Brown University. Unfortunately, I won't be able to go to any stick time or do any skating until then, but thankfully, starting with the second week of school, Meehan Auditorium will have plenty of University Skates for me to work on my skating.
The ultimate drawback to this whole setup is that my skating, while not terribly great especially in skates that aren't the best fit for me, is still my greatest asset. It would be much more productive for me to do more hockey-specific stick and puck work because I still can't make a clean pass to save my life. I've come a long way from my trial-by-fire first game where I literally played without ever having actually learned to play hockey even though I knew all the rules but practiced none of the skills except skating, and it won't be fun to have to put all the progress on hold until I can manage to find a way to get some stick and puck work in.
Until the intramural season starts in November, though, I'll have plenty to work on on- and off-ice.
--I've managed to make my lateral movement and back crossovers more comfortable by adjusting how I put my left skate on and pushing my toes toward the front of the boot. Unfortunately, it seems like this setup is at the cost of good tight turns because now the little bit of space is in my heel, but nonetheless, my tight turns in both directions absolutely need work.
--Speaking of back crossovers, I should definitely work on those too. I can do them, just not terribly well, and at a certain speed, I start to lose control. If I can do forward crossovers at high speeds, I should be able to do the same backwards, in both directions.
--Stops and starts. I should work on my hockey stops more, especially since 95% of my stops happen with just my front foot, and the back foot just kind of stutters on the ice. I don't know if I should learn how to do a T-stop separately, or just keep working on hockey stops until my back foot figures out what to do. More importantly, though, I need to be able to start again quickly after I've stopped. It doesn't help that sometimes my feet drag on a stop, especially if I'm stopping at high speeds, but it's becoming a consistent problem that I'm too slow to react and make my next move after I come to stop.
--I've finally found a good core workout that seems to be working well at least for making my muscles work consistently. Now that I have good, equipment-less workouts I can do regularly, off-ice fitness and conditioning will certainly be a goal to focus on as well.
I'll admit that I'm slightly terrified that if I can't find a way to do stick and puck work on the ice, even if I still find a way to do it off-ice, I'll lose the gains I made this past summer. But until the time comes, I'm just going to keep working and improving what I can.
Thanks for reading!
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