An adult rec hockey player from one of the Carolinas is to thank for this post. You see, Ken recently purchased my "Incredible Stickhandling" video, he had some difficulties with the download, and that led to us going back and forth in a number of emails. In the end, he made a few hockey-related comments and also asked a few questions about puckhandling.
-- Dennis Chighisola
Questions About Puckhandling
I'm going to edit Ken's main email below, cutting some of our techie talk and focusing on his comments and questions about puckhandling...
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He thanked me for the followup, and mentioned a few things he liked.
Among them, he liked the way I put the sequence of drills together, and he also liked one of the drills that has a player spinning in place -- liking the way something like that -- that causes a bit of "disorientation" -- can challenge a player differently than just dribbling from side to side for eons. Then, I'm hoping he's referring to my overall program when he says, "It adds a lot of realism."
I loved that Ken shared some of his experiences about starting late in life, and about dealing with a shortage of ice-time (I'll refer him now to an appropriately named article on "Dealing With A Shortage of On-ice Hockey Practice Time" for some great help in that area). Good for him, that Ken spends lots of time training at home and off-ice, and that he finds a lot of his help on the Internet. (As members might expect, I'll be commenting on the latter point a little later.)
What I really liked, though, was that he spends 15- to 20-minutes per day on puckhandling.
Then, as for the part where he comments and poses questions about puckhandling, he starts by saying, "My biggest concern is making sure I'm practicing the correct motions when I practice so that I don't reinforce bad habits. Unfortunately I learned to play with my dominant right hand on the bottom of the stick which leads to my sometimes chopping onions instead of rolling my top hand and controlling the puck that way. The other issue I have is on ice application when moving forward. If I lose the puck it's typically in toward my feet as it seems when I go from backhand to forehand the puck slides toward me and into my feet if I'm not careful."
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To begin my response, I have to suggest that this young guy not concern himself too much with certain kinds of technique.
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hat I'm getting at is that some movements can be -- and should be -- broken down and analyzed. The forward and backward skating motions can be handled in this way, with a player becoming a lot more efficient and effective with such improvements. So can some of the other movements that take place in open ice be enhanced to an advantage.
hat I'm getting at is that some movements can be -- and should be -- broken down and analyzed. The forward and backward skating motions can be handled in this way, with a player becoming a lot more efficient and effective with such improvements. So can some of the other movements that take place in open ice be enhanced to an advantage.
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Puckhandling, on the other hand, might be a little different... Yes, there is a technique to executing various puck-moves. However, quick reactions are probably a lot more important than prettiness.
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Let me take that last point a little further, perhaps for the first time in these 700+ pages...
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For, if you watch the fanciest players in our game, they lose the puck tons of times on their way up the ice. These losses aren't always visible to the naked eye, but they do occur.*
Then, trying to think of a good video to show Ken and my members, I thought about the stickhandling show my grandson put on in some clips I used for "An Introduction to The MOTION Lab". So, I grabbed the video there, I left the brief intro, followed by the brief footage of my grandson. I wanted to make the video fairly short, so that you can run it numerous times, trying to notice the many times Anthony Chic loses the puck without it being very obvious....
http://coachchic2.s3.amazonaws.com/FromTheMOTIONLab.mp4
It's possible you might want to watch that video again, because I'm going to tell you that the puck bounced oddly numerous times as my grandson played with it -- that's the nature of a rubber puck being whacked side to side with a wooden stick and moving over rough ice at a fairly fast pace. I'm also going to tell you that every deke -- whereby Tony C tossed the puck out to one side or the other, or when he pushed it ahead and pulled it back -- should be considered a lost puck. And so do I consider the puck momentarily lost when he slid it through a defender or tossed it ahead to jump over a stick or whatever.*
What I'm getting at is that it takes really quick hands to reach out and snatch the puck back before an enemy player can get it. And that's why I'm also going to suggest to Ken that he spend as much time playing with a lively acting Swedish stickhandling ball or a golf ball in order to build those kinds of reactions. And, as I hope everyone has come to realize now, there's more reaction to these movements than anything that can be overly analyzed.
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Okay, so there's more to talk about here, because Ken mentioned being disappointed by the way he ended up holding and controlling his hockey stick. Hmmmm...
I'd like to let him know that there's no set way to hold the stick. Yes, it's true that more players tend to control or steer their stick with the top hand. I mean, there's no rule to this area, because I've seen some pretty good puckhandlers who controlled the stick -- as Ken does -- with their dominant hand down low on the shaft.
Then, just as an FYI... I have always found that players are most comfortable holding their sticks in the same way they want to hold a shovel or a broom. So, while we always seem to talk about the positioning of ones dominant hand, might it be as natural to hold the stick like I just described, even if the dominant hand is the lower one?
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Lastly in this area, he mentioned in a followup email about switching his grip and relearning with his dominant hand held at the top of his stick. My suggestion: Absolutely not!
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I just created a Poll to have visitors tell us something about their stick grip.
Please go there and help us make some sense of this topic.
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Okay, moving on with Ken's comments and questions about puckhandling, how about his experiences with frequently losing the puck in his skates? Actually, I sense the answer to this one might have to be at least a two-parter...
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It really bothered me when he suggested that "...it seems when I go from backhand to forehand the puck slides toward me..." So, while I never gave this a lot of thought, it's quite possible his practicing in place so much is causing a problem once he gets to the ice and moves forward. I know I've had to suggest to young beginners that the puck has to be pushed slightly forward on each dribble. In other words, the stick-blade isn't going to be held exactly perpendicular to the skater, but instead on a slight angle that makes the puck go forward with each tap of the puck.
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Just think about that for a sec... Dribbling exactly side to side is going to kinda keep the puck in the same location while the player moves forward -- and, combined with friction playing on the puck -- that's going to have him ultimately over-skating the puck. So again, each dribble is actually a slight push ahead toward the right, followed by a slight push ahead to the left, etc.
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The second part of this involves the combining of skates and stick in handling the puck. And I'm suggesting to my new friend that he spend lots of time doing the drills I suggested for that. In line with what I mentioned above -- about a player frequently losing the puck, he's just as apt to lose it in his skates, and need to be proficient at tapping it immediately back to his stick. And, as I also mention in the video he has, advanced players learn to use that move as one of their dekes -- purposely dropping the puck into their feet, having a nearby defender think it's been lost, and then taking off as soon as that defender takes the bait.
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There was one more question about puckhandling that arrived in a final followup email, with Ken asking, "When you are controlling the puck and going forehand to backhand for example, I know you cup the blade over the puck, but at what point is it more of a sliding of the puck with the stick cupped over it as long as possible until you get to a point where you have to flip the stick over or is it more of a flicking/pushing the puck off of your blade as you turn it over?"
Darn, but he does challenge me to think on these questions, and I have a feeling some other experienced coaches reading this are also scratching their heads right now. And, before anyone thinks it's because that's not a good question, think again. The problem is, it's the kind of thing most of us don't that much about.
And that brings me to offer something that probably goes for everything else I've discussed to this point. I mean, I sense my friend is over-thinking things here a bit, and not just doing what comes naturally.
Yes, we do slightly cup over a puck as we contain it, although cupping of the puck has to be a lot more pronounced if we're pulling it sharply -- around and towards the left or right, or back toward us.
And this causes me to repeat the theme of my next to last paragraph, in that I believe Ken is over-thinking or over-analyzing things a bit too much. It also causes me to reaffirm something I mentioned early-on, in that our game -- and especially puckhandling -- is a matter of reactions.
That being the case, I suggested Ken do the recommended drills from his video a kzillion times -- over and over and over again. Not with great discipline, though, but having fun, and doing them with a little pizzazz. Hot-dogging is another way of putting it, knowing that making mistakes is no big deal; in fact, every time the puck or ball squirts away, it puts him right in the kind of game conditions my grandson was facing in the above video.
Okay, one thing left undone... I'm thankful for Internet searches that lead guys like Ken my way. At the same time, I get out and around through cyberspace, myself, and I shake my head at some of the advice I see there. As a matter of fact, I have a feeling that the questions about puckhandling Ken raised in our brief exchange may stem from what others have told him -- in YouTube videos, wherever. I'm not pushing him to join CoachChic.com here, but I would suggest he browse my Free to Non-members section before he ventures elsewhere, or that he send me any new questions via our Ask The Coach feature. So is access to Hockey Talk Radio free, and I've carefully screened any of the advisers he'll hear there.
