Hockey Drill Sitemap

1. From The Rink - To many boys living in Canada, playing hockey is as much a part of life as attending school, because to Canadians hockey is more than just a game it's an institution.

One of these boys who carried skates as well as schoolbooks was Bill L'Heureux. Raised in Port Arthur, Ontario, Bill learned his early playing skills by participating in pee-wee, bantam, midget, and high school hockey. At the same time, he "hit the books" hard enough to earn a college scholarship at the age of sixteen.

2. Bobby Hull - Today thousands of boys are playing hockey. And you can bet that not one of these boys has to be coaxed to play, for hockey is an exciting and challenging game. It is so exciting that it can pull boys out of bed early on cold, frosty mornings, lead them to a wind-whipped, ice-covered rink, and keep them on the ice for hours at a time.

3. First Period - Skating is to hockey as running is to football. Starting fast, changing pace and direction, bursting into top speed, and keeping good balance are common to both games. The blades on hockey skates and the cleats on football shoes provide gripping and braking surfaces which allow short, digging, breakaway steps and sure-footed, sudden stops.

4. Goals - This period we are going after goals, and that means assists, too. So let us take a look first at the various ways of shooting and of beating the goalkeeper.

Before we do this, you should know a very important fact about shooting. Your team will do well to average 30 to 40 shots on goal per game. If you are a forward, you may have only six to eight shots in a game. In an hour of scrimmage practice, this average may be only slightly higher.

5. Assists - We have been discussing how to score goals. Now we come to the many ways of setting up the shooter. We will describe the fundamentals of stick handling, passing, and receiving, and give you some tips on offensive play.

Assists are just as valuable as goals in hockey. The unselfish playmaker often makes all the hard moves in setting up a teammate for the score.

6. Red Light Out - As in basketball and football, one of the secrets of good defensive hockey is to have players with great desire and hustle, who will battle hard to keep the other team from scoring. There is no place on the team for a player who will not do his share of checking.

Because it is difficult to keep team possession of the puck, you have to be ready to swing from offense to defense quickly and often.

7. Making the Team - This game is going into overtime, as many of your games will when the offense and defense have been about equal. The team that puts out that little extra in overtime will usually win, and the player who knows these little extras will certainly have a start in earning his place on the team.

Glossary of Hockey Terms - BACK CHECK: to skate back into your defending zone to cover an opponent after the opposing team has gained the puck.

BLUE LINES: two blue, 12-inch wide lines located 60 feet from each goal. Defending blue line is the line closer to a player's own net; attacking blue line is the one farther from his net.

BODY CHECK: to hit an opponent with the shoulder or hip.

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