View Single Post
  #5 (permalink)  
Old 07-09-2008, 03:39 PM
Timberwoof's Avatar
Timberwoof Timberwoof is offline
skinny guy in wolf suit
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Practice, practice, practice. All the game-reading skills and all the theoretical skills in the world won't help if you don't have the physical motions down. Go to pickup hockey or stick time and practice doing that kind of stuff.

Over the past several years I've had a tough time working on certain skills because they require me to find trainable, patient, and accurate shooters ... so instead I worked on other skills, ones I didn't need a partner to work on. These were shooting and stickhandling.

For instance, when you take your initial skate around the rink, bring a puck with you and herd it along as you go. You might look like a doof the first few times you try it, but anyone learning a new skill looks like a doof at first. (Don't ask me how I know.)

Then just practice passing. Get a bunch of pucks and pass them to a line on the boards. (You will have a hard time keeping your pucks. Players don't understand what a goalie might want with a pile of pucks, while if a player had a pile of pucks and was practicing shooting them, he'd get left alone.) Again, you'll get better with practice.

As your skills get better, you'll gain confidence in using them during a game. :-)
Reply With Quote