“advanced” stats are called “advanced” for reasons that i couldn’t tell you. we all seem comfortable talking about goalie save percentages and goals against average, yet we bristle at the thought of what a player’s points per 60 or goals for % is.--uvgt2bkdnme
as J.J. said and i would like to emphasize, advanced stats are absolutely NOT crucial to appreciating and enjoying the game. i had a lot of fun watching hockey before i ever heard the word Corsi, but considering the direction that hockey analytics seems very likely headed, i decided to familiarize myself with them. you likely won’t ever see me searching out Corsi or any of those numbers myself because that’s just not how i describe the game or interact with other fans. i’ll inevitably say something dumb in the future, but generally, i just listen when the discussions move toward player comparisons using these metrics. considering i’m also learning to play hockey myself, i’m also slowly gaining a more complete understanding of tactics. granted, that process will be long, slow, and arduous, but that’s just how i engage with the game.
as for the stats themselves, i do find it helpful to distinguish between the different kind of non-traditional stats. most of the traditional stats are just simply counting stats—goals, assists, points, plus-minus, PIM, and the like. goalie stats can help ease you into how certain metrics are calculated: GAA is simply GA/60 minutes played for a goalie, or how many goals a goalie gives up on average per game. when talking about rate stats for skaters, these usually manifest as G/60 or P/60 or A1/60 for primary assists and A2/60 for secondary assists. you’ve got percentages, which there are a ton of: shooting %, save %, goals for/ against %. then you have the possession stats Corsi and Fenwick and all the various metrics associated with them like quality of competition (QUALCOMP). this is a lot of name-dropping, i admit, so don’t fret if you didn’t understand it the first time. the thing i hope you take away from this paragraph is that “advanced” stats encompass a lot of ways of looking at the numbers you’re already familiar with, like goals and points, and seeing what patterns emerge as well as looking at other numbers like shots and shot differentials. they’re just different ways of looking at players and the game.
the inevitable strawman that seems to pop up in the debate over advanced stats concerns their predictive power. when someone says that Corsi is the best and most reliable indicator of long-term predictability or repeatability for players and teams, they mean it exactly as it sounds: it’s the best long-term indicator. compiling all the players’ Corsi and goalie stats and throwing them into a machine can give Vegas betting odds, but it won’t tell us if the Red Wings are going to win opening night against Buffalo, or the Winter Classic against the Maple Leafs, or Lidstrom night against the Avalanche. dealing with hockey on a game by game and period by period basis, the numbers have almost no value because periods and games are examples of small sample sizes that swing the numbers into a wild variance. the numbers can tell us who will likely make the playoffs, and even to a certain extent how far teams will go in the playoffs, but even in the long-term, there is still a level of uncertainty in their predictive power over the influence of the outcome of a hockey game, season, or playoff series.
so to answer your questions: advanced stats usually refer to anything that doesn’t show up on NHL.com’s stats pages that can still tell us something useful about players and teams. they’re important for the information they tell us, but always keep in mind that no one number can possibly capture everything in a hockey game. even advanced stats need context and proper interpretation to be utilized to their full analytical potential. but they’re not absolutely crucial to watching and enjoying a hockey game or season.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
The Bruised Brother elsewhere on the Internet
I'm really proud of this comment I made on this post:
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Hockey Journal 8-25-13
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!
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!
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Sticktime 8-17-13
After a scheduling snafu that meant no sticktime on Friday night, I went back out after calling the rink beforehand to make sure sticktime was happening Saturday night. 8:30-10:00pm, and I really needed it after not being on the ice for 9 days and having my soul slowly eaten up by moving to a new house.
I felt awkward on my skates at first, but that feeling dissipated quickly. I still have problems with my left skate because of the size discrepancy, but ever since I started putting my toes up toward the front of the boot, I've seen a marked improvement in my skating comfort and slightly higher proficiency in my skating ability. Hockey skating is starting to become a much more automatic endeavor, a huge improvement over my days where I had to think about every movement that wasn't straight forward and back skating. My crossovers backward and forward in both directions are improving, and my heel transitions are so much smoother than at the start of the summer. Skating at Sabby's clinics have really helped my skating skills even though they weren't the primary focus of going to the clinics.
For about the first fifteen minutes, there was only one goalie because the other goalie was still getting dressed. I spent most of my time in the goalie-less end while everyone else was skating in and shooting on the goalie. More ice for me. I practiced taking slap shots against the boards, and I'm actually getting legitimate slap shots off. Without taking video and slowing the whole motion down, I don't know if my stick actually flexes at all on the shot (I'm trying to get used to an 85 flex rating and work my strength up toward it), but the shots coming off my stick tonight were legitimate slap shots instead of just slap attempts at the puck that barely slide across the ice. Of course, those pitiful slap attempts also happened, so consistency is the new issue with my slap shots, but now that I have more confidence that I can actually pull it off, maybe it'll actually become a weapon in my shot arsenal.
Once the second goalie showed up on the ice, we skated around and shot pucks while I did some mild skating drills. One of the guys brought the net to the other end of the ice, and we had a 3-on-3 scrimmage using the space of the offensive zone.
The best player on the ice was on the other team. Pretty much no one could stop him, and even three of us had a rough time actually getting the puck off him. Thankfully, he tried to get his teammates involved, and whenever that happened, it generally turned out in our favor. They scored some goals, of course, because that's just what happens when you allow a ton of shots like that. But my teammates were awesome, even if they were pretty happy to jump up in the play and miss the guy waiting in front of our net for a pass and an easy goal.
I don't know where this jump in my play came from, but even though the other guy pretty much walked over us for most of the night, I played my best stretch of hockey . . . literally ever. I had some pretty tough turnovers and missed passes, but I caught 90% of passes given to me (compared to about 20% before), I broke up a lot more plays that I usually do (though that's pretty easy to do when you can just anticipate that the other two players are just going to pass to the best player on their team), and I put a bunch of shots on net. I scored only two or three goals (compared to the other guy's 12 or 13), but I set up my teammates for lots of good shots, and my skating wasn't a hindrance. I still need to learn how to play along the boards, and I still need to remember to keep focus on the man in front of me and keeping his upper body in front of me, and I need to cut down on the dumb turnovers, but compared to the rest of the times I've played hockey before? I was lights out tonight.
I do have one major concern health-wise, looking forward. I've been drinking a lot of water this summer. It's pretty necessary considering lots of Los Angeles days this summer have reached the upper 90s and even 100+ degrees Fahrenheit. But even when I drink plenty of water beforehand, I still reach a point when I'm playing where my head feels tight in my helmet, and I start feeling like I need water. Badly. Thankfully, I've never needed to get off the ice or receive medical attention because of dehydration, but I wonder what else I can do during hockey sessions to improve my hydration. I've considered just simply drinking more water in the middle of playing, but there are two problems I run into almost all the time: 1) it gets really uncomfortable to get back on the ice quickly if I drink too much water, so I essentially take myself out of the game to focus on rehydrating and 2) for sticktimes, and even during Sabby's clinic, I don't really get a chance to sit on the bench for an extended period of time. Of course, I'm not looking to stay on the bench because I love playing, but I definitely need to improve my conditioning and somehow improve my hydration during hockey.
This is almost certainly going to be the last sticktime I go to until December when I return home for Christmas. Unless I can find something in Providence that's easy to go to by bus or by foot (with all my equipment in tow without my own car), it'll be a lot of off-ice work until the intramural season starts in November. I might be able to go to Sabby's clinic one last time on Thursday before I fly out the next Wednesday, but that remains to be seen. I just really hope I can maintain the gains I've made this summer and improve on what was a fun but stellarly lackluster first season of hockey.
I felt awkward on my skates at first, but that feeling dissipated quickly. I still have problems with my left skate because of the size discrepancy, but ever since I started putting my toes up toward the front of the boot, I've seen a marked improvement in my skating comfort and slightly higher proficiency in my skating ability. Hockey skating is starting to become a much more automatic endeavor, a huge improvement over my days where I had to think about every movement that wasn't straight forward and back skating. My crossovers backward and forward in both directions are improving, and my heel transitions are so much smoother than at the start of the summer. Skating at Sabby's clinics have really helped my skating skills even though they weren't the primary focus of going to the clinics.
For about the first fifteen minutes, there was only one goalie because the other goalie was still getting dressed. I spent most of my time in the goalie-less end while everyone else was skating in and shooting on the goalie. More ice for me. I practiced taking slap shots against the boards, and I'm actually getting legitimate slap shots off. Without taking video and slowing the whole motion down, I don't know if my stick actually flexes at all on the shot (I'm trying to get used to an 85 flex rating and work my strength up toward it), but the shots coming off my stick tonight were legitimate slap shots instead of just slap attempts at the puck that barely slide across the ice. Of course, those pitiful slap attempts also happened, so consistency is the new issue with my slap shots, but now that I have more confidence that I can actually pull it off, maybe it'll actually become a weapon in my shot arsenal.
Once the second goalie showed up on the ice, we skated around and shot pucks while I did some mild skating drills. One of the guys brought the net to the other end of the ice, and we had a 3-on-3 scrimmage using the space of the offensive zone.
The best player on the ice was on the other team. Pretty much no one could stop him, and even three of us had a rough time actually getting the puck off him. Thankfully, he tried to get his teammates involved, and whenever that happened, it generally turned out in our favor. They scored some goals, of course, because that's just what happens when you allow a ton of shots like that. But my teammates were awesome, even if they were pretty happy to jump up in the play and miss the guy waiting in front of our net for a pass and an easy goal.
I don't know where this jump in my play came from, but even though the other guy pretty much walked over us for most of the night, I played my best stretch of hockey . . . literally ever. I had some pretty tough turnovers and missed passes, but I caught 90% of passes given to me (compared to about 20% before), I broke up a lot more plays that I usually do (though that's pretty easy to do when you can just anticipate that the other two players are just going to pass to the best player on their team), and I put a bunch of shots on net. I scored only two or three goals (compared to the other guy's 12 or 13), but I set up my teammates for lots of good shots, and my skating wasn't a hindrance. I still need to learn how to play along the boards, and I still need to remember to keep focus on the man in front of me and keeping his upper body in front of me, and I need to cut down on the dumb turnovers, but compared to the rest of the times I've played hockey before? I was lights out tonight.
I do have one major concern health-wise, looking forward. I've been drinking a lot of water this summer. It's pretty necessary considering lots of Los Angeles days this summer have reached the upper 90s and even 100+ degrees Fahrenheit. But even when I drink plenty of water beforehand, I still reach a point when I'm playing where my head feels tight in my helmet, and I start feeling like I need water. Badly. Thankfully, I've never needed to get off the ice or receive medical attention because of dehydration, but I wonder what else I can do during hockey sessions to improve my hydration. I've considered just simply drinking more water in the middle of playing, but there are two problems I run into almost all the time: 1) it gets really uncomfortable to get back on the ice quickly if I drink too much water, so I essentially take myself out of the game to focus on rehydrating and 2) for sticktimes, and even during Sabby's clinic, I don't really get a chance to sit on the bench for an extended period of time. Of course, I'm not looking to stay on the bench because I love playing, but I definitely need to improve my conditioning and somehow improve my hydration during hockey.
This is almost certainly going to be the last sticktime I go to until December when I return home for Christmas. Unless I can find something in Providence that's easy to go to by bus or by foot (with all my equipment in tow without my own car), it'll be a lot of off-ice work until the intramural season starts in November. I might be able to go to Sabby's clinic one last time on Thursday before I fly out the next Wednesday, but that remains to be seen. I just really hope I can maintain the gains I've made this summer and improve on what was a fun but stellarly lackluster first season of hockey.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Responding to @DownGoesBrown's NHL Fixes
I am a big fan of Sean McIndoe, better known (to me at least) by his blog name Down Goes Brown, and have been ever since I found his blog. I've been fortunate enough to still be able to breathe normally after laughing at such gems as this and this and this.
McIndoe's latest post on Grantland identifies 23 different ways (or sub-headings) to fix the NHL game right now. Give it a read because, while I do vehemently agree with certain changes that need to be changed yesterday, I feel that some changes either do nothing to solve the original problem, aren't really a problem in the first place, or make the problem worse. Don't worry, I'll give you a minute.
McIndoe's latest post on Grantland identifies 23 different ways (or sub-headings) to fix the NHL game right now. Give it a read because, while I do vehemently agree with certain changes that need to be changed yesterday, I feel that some changes either do nothing to solve the original problem, aren't really a problem in the first place, or make the problem worse. Don't worry, I'll give you a minute.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Shawn Burr
The Red Wings family lost Shawn Burr too soon. George Malik has a wonderful write-up commemorating his time with the Red Wings as a player, as a person, and as Red Wings alumni president, coming back to the organization he spent 11 seasons with as a player.
I was only 4 years old by the time Burr moved on from the Red Wings as a player, and even then, I wasn't really into hockey until later in the '90s. So I'll defer to the people who saw and knew him to be an outstanding human being.
Requiescat in pace
I was only 4 years old by the time Burr moved on from the Red Wings as a player, and even then, I wasn't really into hockey until later in the '90s. So I'll defer to the people who saw and knew him to be an outstanding human being.
Requiescat in pace
Monday, August 5, 2013
Sabby's Clinic 8-1-13
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.
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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