Recent 12U - GORMAN News
Skating Pointers
Skating Tip from IHC
Here's a skating tip that should help with your stride. We've used IHC several times with my older son and they have a great "progressive" teaching method that helped our older son.
First they have to get a lot of knee bend or what you'll hear "get low". This is the finishing technique that they sent out in a newsletter.
GET ON THE BALLS OF FEET TO IMPROVE YOUR SKATING
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At IHC Hockey, we teach that power starts from your heels and finishes at the toes, and quickness comes from the balls of your feet. There is one inch of blade under where your toes meet your feet at the balls of your feet that makes you quicker when accelerating off of this area. However, the balls of your feet also play an important role in establishing a long powerful stride. When you are striding and pushing on a forty-five degree angle, you should start pushing with your heel but you have to finish with a "toe-flick". The "toe-flick" is ending your stride while pushing down with the toe of the inside edge while getting power out of the balls of your feet to finish your stride. This "toe-flick" is vital in achieving a long powerful stride as many players will kick their heels up instead of pushing down with their toes. When a player kicks their heels up, they are losing a lot of power out of their stride. Make sure that you are getting power out of your stride by pushing down with the toe and using the ball of the foot for extra power to finish your stride. The balls of your feet are very important in hockey skating. Not only will they provide you with quickness and a faster start, but they will also provide you with a much more powerful stride when used properly.
Robert Gergerich
IHC Hockey
We'll start the season with a basic that has nothing to do with talent or hockey specifically. Take a look at an excerpt from an article on USA Hockey's website.
What Is Teamwork?
"While the dictionary definition talks about a cooperative or coordinated effort in the interest of a common cause, most of us understand the meaning to be a group of people working towards a common goal while creating a positive environment that celebrates and accentuates each individual’s strengths to create a combined better performance. It’s the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That together we are stronger than we are individually."
- From an article online / USA Hockey
https://www.usahockey.com/news_article/show/502941-success-through-teamwork
There's a reason I put in BOLD and UNDERLINED the phrase CREATING A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT. It's because that is the foundation for the entire season. If there is one common focal point...that is the most important one. If every kid shows passion on the ice they play above expectations, I've seen it happen. It's hard to show passion when compassion is not present. That's why our team environment is so important.
So good game or bad game, keep our players engaged and excited to get out there again. They can't do that if they are scared to make mistakes. Learning from mistakes means you have to be allowed to make them and take constructive criticism to improve.
I posted this because I've coached for a while and have actually seen better teams fail and mediocre teams play above expectation all because of the environment they are in. Sadly one person can determine a bad environment, which is exactly why I put so much stress on respecting each other and our opponents on and off the ice.
So it starts with how we interact with our players at home, on the way to and way back from events, in the locker room between each other, and on the bench/ice during the game.
Let's all work together to reach and maintain something special this year.
