I better get to writing this before I forget everything.
Thursday, I went to the Valley Ice Center for a session of Sabby's Clinic. There were about 10-12 of us, so we got to see a wide variety of players and skill levels. I can definitely learn a lot by watching some of these guys, and a few others are pretty awesome at this hockey thing. Almost like they've been playing it for longer than I have.
As is usual, we started off the session warming up and just shooting pucks around like a regular sticktime session. I mostly like getting some skating work in, especially to get my heart rate going since I need to work on my conditioning, but skating work during this period allows me to work on my skating with pads on as opposed to most other times I work on skating exclusively. That's not to say I didn't shoot a couple pucks or do some light stickhandling before the drills started, but there was one especially proud moment early on in the clinic. I brought my Warrior Mac Daddy out for the second time on the ice, and when I went to load up for my first slap shot, I hit that sucker right on the money. It wasn't a particularly hard or fast shot (on an absolute scale), but my form was pretty good, especially since I was skating into it instead of practicing from a stand-still position, I got good wood (composite) on it, and I could actually see the puck spinning as it traveled about thigh-high off the ice and into the net, glove-side. I took only one other slap shot all day, and it wasn't anywhere near as good as that one was. Probably my best slap shot ever. I'm really happy with my new hockey stick.
All our drills used the entire ice. For our first drill, we lined up behind the goal line on one corner. (I seriously thought we were going to do suicides on the ice, which would have probably killed a lot of us.) We skate up the ice with a puck to the opposite blue line. Once there, pivot and skate backwards, making a full circle around the entire neutral zone before doing a heel transition to skate forward again and take a shot on net, then get back in line. I don't know what this drill is called, and if there is a Youtube video of it that I can show to make it clearer, I'd certainly appreciate it. This drill definitely tested our puck control as much as our skating ability.
Because I only get to do these things a few times, I try to go as fast as I possibly can. This means that I inevitably screw the drill up, usually by losing the puck, so I slow the drill down by a lot trying to get the puck back and pick up from where I left off. Since I can't exactly do this slowly and practice it to get it up to speed, I'm not entirely sure how to evaluate my approach. If I could come to the rink and practice like this more often than once a week, then I'd happily do it slowly until I worked my way up to speed, but since I do a drill like this only at most 3 times on one side, I figure I'd benefit more from pushing the pace since it gets my game speed instincts sharper and gives me more of a workout. It's unfortunate because I do lose the puck a fair bit, so I'd like to be able to get sharper on drills like this, but I think a nice benefit is learning to deal with my own mistakes and trying to take everything in stride. The game doesn't stop to let me correct a mistake, so I better get used to figuring out how I would address something like losing the puck while backskating or trying to keep the puck while turning from back to forward skating.
After finishing this drill on the other side of the ice, we then formed two lines behind the same goal line and at each corner. Side one would start with the puck. Side one and side two would skate toward each other through the crease while side one passes the puck off. Side two guy carries the puck while both guys skate toward the boards then up ice to the first blue line. Both guys turn while the puck carrier passes the puck across the blue line. Skate to the boards again and up through the neutral zone before skating across the width of the opposite blue line, again passing the puck. When both players skate up ice again, skate in on the goalie and prepare for a shot on goal or a one-timer. Line up behind the opposite goal line and prepare to do it again, going up ice in the opposite direction.
This drill went predictably awful for me because even though I had an ok time handling and making passes (which I'm getting better at in general, but again, I really think my new hockey stick helps a lot especially since I have a better idea of where on the blade I want to catch the pass and because I have a lot of blade to work with), I had a tough time keeping the puck while I was turning at the boards to skate up ice. This made for some awkward moments where my drill partner would park himself at the far post waiting for a one-timer which I eventually fed to him. They weren't the greatest passes, but I still think he could have done better with getting a one-timer on net. We all have stuff to work on.
There was one unfortunate moment in this drill. On the whistle, one guy and I started. I received the pass through the crease to start. We skated toward each other at full speed, but it was too late for the both of us to realize we were going to hit each other. Him being the bigger and stronger guy, I got the worse of the contact, getting hit in the left shoulder and chest and knocked on my ass into the net (since we hit each other in the crease). It didn't hurt per se, and like any hockey player, I got up and kept going with the drill. It was actually a pretty gnarly hit even though I didn't get hurt, especially since I wasn't expecting it. I was expecting him to skate in front of the crease while I would carry the puck through the crease, but I was a little too far forward in my lane, so BAM! Full-on contact. Now I know what it means to get the wind knocked out of you. I was fine and felt no more aftereffects of the hit after about 10 minutes, but my chest and shoulder felt a little bit tighter directly after contact.
We finished the drill portion of the clinic with a backward skating drill. We lined up along the boards, two lines at opposite blue lines along the boards on opposite sides of the ice. (This drill is going to be a doozy to explain without video.) On the whistle, player one starts skating backwards toward the other blue line. Player two sends him a pass which player one skates to the middle of the ice before passing to a waiting guy in the other line. After passing, player one pivots backwards to the boards and gets the pass back from the waiting guy in the other line before skating back up ice and giving the puck back to player two, the guy he got the puck from in the first place when he skated back to the opposite blue line. He gets the pass back again as he skates up ice for a shot on goal. Got that? Good, because it was a bit confusing at first on the ice, but there was a pattern to it and we eventually got a good rhythm for it.
Essentially, there are four players doing something in one drill rep. The players in the front of the line are doing the skating, first skating backward to the opposite blue line then receiving the pass, skating across the blue line and giving the puck up to the guy waiting in the other line. They pivot from forward to backward and get the puck back before skating to the boards and passing to the next guy in his original line. Skating guy gets the puck back as he's going up ice and shoots on the goalie. The guys in line directly behind skating guy (or the second guys in line) stay where they are until the next whistle for them to skate, but they're also participating in the drill. They make the first pass to the back-skating guy, then receive a pass from the guy doing the same drill on the opposite side. They give the puck back and then receive another pass from the guy skating up ice before giving the puck up to him for a shot on net and get ready to skate on the whistle. As terribly as I have been at trying to explain it, the rest of us were actually pretty good at this drill, once we got the hang of where we and the pucks were supposed to go. I didn't have too many problems handling the puck, and there were only a couple errant passes.
We ended the clinic with a full ice 5-on-5 scrimmage. I got two breaks, about a minute long each. I started at center before eventually being put, predictably, back on defense (mostly because of a substitution since he was the only man back and I had to stay there), though I struggled keeping people in front of me more than I usually do. I was actually pretty useless in my own zone for this game.
One good thing that happened for me: After the other team couldn't hit the bar (we only had one goalie), I picked the puck up and started skating up ice on the left side. Pretty much no one came near me until I got to the blue line, and even then, I had a head of steam going up ice so I backed the defense off pretty well. I had a guy on the right side open, so I sent him a hard pass that went off the stick of the defenseman but landed on my teammate's tape anyway. He fired a shot top glove, across the net that sent pretty much everybody in a tizzy because, yeah, it was an awesome shot. The best part about getting the primary assist on this goal? The guy who scored was the guy who hit me earlier in the crease during the weaving drill. Yeah. No hard feelings.
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