Hockey Shooting Tips

Hockey Shooting Tips
Shooting from the Opposite Wing
One of the advantages of approaching the opponents net on your opposite wing (left handed shooter on the right wing and right handed shooters on the left wing) is that the angle of your shot is closer to the net.

When shooting from your 'regular' side, the puck has to travel at a sharper angle, so it's easier for the goalie to stop.

Here's a

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Hockey Defensive Positioning

Hockey Defensive PositioningAlways Cover the Front of the Net
When playing hockey in the defensive zone, the key to positioning is communication with your defense partner:
Talk to each other.


Let your defense partner know when he has time, and when he has a 'man-on.'
Let your defense partner know where you are.
Call for the puck when you're open for a pass behind the net.
When it comes to

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Hockey Defense Drills

Hockey Defense DrillsHelper Drill
Here's a great drill from Sportvideos.com that encourages defensemen to scan the ice before they receive the puck when regrouping in the neutral zone.




In this drill, the defenseman starts on either size of the ice at the center line and skates backwards between two cones at the center ice face-off circle.

The defenseman then looks to both sides of the ice to

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How to Shoot the Puck into the Offensive Zone

Shooting the Puck in Deep
Often when you have no play in the neutral zone (between the two blue lines) all you can do is dump the puck in deep and hope one of your own players can get the puck back for your team.

Here's how the Sedins do it:



Instead of ringing the puck around the boards, Daniel Sedin shoots the puck in off the end boards at the far side of the net. The puck then bounces back

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Cliff Ronning Positioning Hockey Tips

Cliff Ronning Positioning Tips
Cliff Ronning is obviously a huge fan of Jannik Hansen.

Jannik Hansen is constantly moving his feat, is always facing the play, and is very aware of where his teammates are. Above all, he loves to score goals.

In this highlight reel, Ronning points out Jannik Hensen excellent work habbits and natural goal scoring ability.



Hansen is never standing in one place

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Hockey Books for Christmas Gifts

Hockey Books for Christmas Gifts
Here's some great Hockey Book ideas that will make great Christmas gifts for any Hockey player. The reviews are from Amazon. Click on each book to read more reviews.

Sports Illustrated has put together the definitive book about the sport of ice hockey, drawing on its article archives and its photo library. This is a marvelous book, with huge, gorgeous color

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Hockey Tips for Beginners

Hockey Tips for Beginners
If you're a beginner hockey player looking for a few tips on how to improve your game, you've come to the right place. This blog if full of great hockey tips for beginners.

Here's a few tips to get you started, or try the search box in the right column.

Beginner Hockey Tip #1Try all your new hockey equipment on before you go on the ice for the first time.
Try putting

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Hip Checks

How to throw a Hip Check
You don't see hip checks in the NHL much now a days. Players and coaches have realized that most of the time a hip check is a low risk-reward play. The risk of either taking yourself out of the play if you miss the opposing player simply isn't worth the reward of the solid hit. More often than not, both players are taken out of the play.

When all the planets do align

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Passing Drills for Defense

Passing Drills for Defensemen
Here's a great series of passing drills that will benefit all players, but in particular defensemen.

The back and forth passing practiced in the Quad Passing, and Cross Ice Passing drills are valuable skills when playing defense. D to D teamwork often involves a lot of lateral passing, compared to up ice passes sent up to the forwards on a breakout.



Always be

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Best Drills for Power Skating

Best Drills for Power Skating
One of the best power skating drills to practice is called sculling. This drill helps you increase the power of your stride.

Start this drill by getting low into a hockey stance, dig in with your heels, and push all the way out for a full leg extension, then bring your feet back together directly under your body. Extend your leg without lifting your skate off the

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Defense: Control The Gap

How to Control the GapGap control is one of the trickier decisions you will have to make when playing defense. The 'Gap' refers to the amount of space between you and an opposing player entering your defensive zone with the puck - usually a one-on-one.

The first step in controlling the gap in to skate backwards at the same speed as the oncoming forward. The is definitely no easy task. If the

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Offensive Positioning: Go Hard To The Net

Offensive Positioning:Go Hard to the Net
You may have heard other players yell "Go hard to the net!!" but might be unsure exactly what they meant or when you're supposed to do it.

What your helpful teammates are referring to takes place during a two-man rush in the offensive zone. The player who crosses the blue line with the puck is often in an outside lane (coming down on the right or left

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How to Screen The Goalie

How to Screen The GoalieWhen your teammate is lining up for a shot on goal, you can play a big part to increase the chances of scoring a goal by screening the other team’s goalie.

Getting if front of the goalie’s line of site isn’t always as easy as it sounds. You’ll be standing in prime real estate with a huge target on your back square in the sights of some big-ass defenseman whose job is to

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Sedin Slap Pass

Sedin Slap PassNo other two players come close to Henrik and Daniel Sedin's uncanny ability to play hockey together. Each seems to know the others position on the ice at all times and can anticipate the others every move.

A great example of this is their patented Slap Pass.

Before the Sedins perfected this play, pucks were either deflected near the goalie, or picked out of the air to redirect

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Pucker UP Puck Picker-Upper

Pucker Up!If your tired of bending over or crouching down on one knee to pick up pucks after a practice, check out the this cool new puck picker-upper called Pucker Up.

Fortunately they were nice enough to send me one to try out, and it really does work. It's light, super easy to use, and holds up to 25 Pucks. It's long cylindrical design allows it to fit it nicely your hockey bag, or you can

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Shoot Low to Create a Rebound

Shoot Low to Create a Rebound
When carrying the puck into the offensive zone, it's the defensemean's job to try to push you to the outside lane, away from the prime scoring area in front of the net. If you find yourself quickly apprroaching the corner of the rink, he's done his job.

Now that you've essentially run out of ice, you have 4 basic options.
Make a pass to an open player in front of

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One Timer Slap Shot

How to Shoot a One-Timer
A One-timer is simply a slap shot that you shoot as soon as you receive the puck.  Your stick only makes contact with the puck once.

The big advantage to any slap shot is the speed of the shot. Fast, hard shots are harder for the goalie to stop. What you gain in power, you loose in precision and accuracy compared to a wrist, or snap shot.

The goal of a one-timer is get

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How to Kill a Penalty

How to Kill Penalties in Hockey
The first step in killing a penalty is to get your players on the ice set up in a box formation:



The goal is to cut off the passing lanes without over-committing to any one player on the other team.

You don't have enough bodies to cover one-on-one, so when pressuring the player with the puck, you also have to take away one of his passing options - without

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Hockey Defense Tips - Two on One

How to Play Defense: Two on One
Two-on-one is a really tough defensive situation to be in, but if you play defence for any length of time, you'll eventually face a two-on-one.

It's impossible to cover both players 100%, so the best strategy is to prevent the puck carrier from making a clean pass to the other forward, and let the goalie handle the shot.

Your position will depend on where the

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Hockey Yoga Stretches

Yoga Stretches for HockeyOne of the best Yoga stretches you can use for Hockey is the Triangle pose.

This Yoga pose is great for hockey players because it focuses on the spine, lower back, flexibility, lateral muscles, and hamstrings. This stretch also increases your flexibility and strength.

In this exercise, you build up strength in the lower back and upper legs while you remove tension from

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The Original Skate Squeegee Review

The Original Skate Squeegee
Like most hockey players, I've been using my fingers or an old towel to wipe off my skate blades after each game. I recently found out about the Original Skate Squeegee and decided to give it a test drive.

As usual, my skates were pretty wet from the melted ice and snow built up after the game. I slid the Original Skate Squeegee along the bottom of each skate blade,

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Keep Your Head Up

Young hockey players who keep their heads up and brace themselves as they anticipate collisions really can reduce the severity of head impacts, as coaches say, a study of boys wearing special helmets has found.

Since young hockey players have previously been shown to suffer head impacts as severe as those of college and university football players, researchers, hockey associations, coaches and

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Hockey Books and DVDs on Defense

Hockey Defense DVDs DVDs on Hockey Defense from Championship Productions

How to Improve Your Defenseman

Mark Carlson, the USHL's Coach of the Year in 2004-05, shares 15 important drills and details for defensive hockey. His rebuilding efforts produced the best record and first Clark Cup title in team history. Coach Carlson's presentation begins with a drill for advancing the puck, which teaches

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Pilates for Hockey Players

Pilates for Hockey Players
In Jennifer Mongeluzo’s world, Pilates can help everybody, even a couple of bruising hockey players. To prove it, the owner of The Pilates Centre on West Avenue invited Bridgeport Sound Tigers hockey players Greg Mauldin and Matt Martin in for a pilates workout Wednesday to give them a taste of what they’re missing.
“I’m surprised more athletes don’t incorporate it into

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Hockey players using Pilates to fight injury

From Hockey players using Pilates to fight injury at CBC sports.

Cassie Campbell gets Stephanie Davis' thoughts on the benefit Pilates for Hockey Players. Stephanie Davis has worked with Calgary-based hockey players such Martin Gelinas, Rhett Warrener, Braydon Coburn, Devan Dubnyk and Jason LaBarbera. Most recently she helped Theoren Fleury attempt his comeback to the NHL.

Here are some of

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Slapshot Tips

Adrian Aucoin's Slapshot TipsAdrian Aucoin shows us some great a slapshot tips and puts a a nice demo:



Slapshot Tips:

Bend Your knees to get low - Most of your strength comes from your legs and lower body
Drop your bottom hand low on the stick
Really lean into the shot
Hit the ice a couple inches or so behind the puck.
Hit the ice further back on a one-timer
Keep your head up so you can aim

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Synthetic Ice Ricks

Synthetic Ice RicksHave you ever seen people playing hockey in the middle of summer on what looks lice ice? At first you give your head a shake. Then you notice the players are wearing ice skates, so you know not hallucinating ... but WTF?

No, you haven't lost it. They are playing on synthetic ice.

Forty-eight synthetic outdoor ice rinks are operated across Toronto.
How does the synthetic ice

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How to Hockey Stop

How to Hockey Stop
Learning how to to a hard, fast hockey stop feels great and looks great - especially when you want to spray some ice. Hockey stops are one of the trickier skating fundamentals to learn, so best take it one step at a time.

Before your learn how to do a hockey stop, you'll first need to get the feel of your skates sliding sideways along the ice. To do this, hang on to the

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Hockey Magazine - Score More Goals DVD

Hockey Player Magazine DVDHockey Player Magazine sells a great DVD called 50 Ways to Score More Goals
Here's a sample of the 15 minutes interview with Luc Robitaille with his advice on becoming a better goal-scorer.




Robitaille explains the importance of getting the shot off quick.

Buy it at Hockey Player Magazine

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Skating Tips from Wayne Gretzky

Gretzky Skating Tips



Some great skating tips from Gretzky:

The first thing you need to develop is a good fluid skating stride
Most of your skating power comes from your thigh muscles
Make sure your knees are bent, and your weight is slightly forward
Fully extend your pushing leg from your hip, knee, and ankle using your thigh for power
Think of your skate as a part of your leg when pushing

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How to Aim Your Wristshot

Written by Jeremy Rupke from howtohockey.com

Are you having trouble picking those top corners? Do you want to score more goals, and have a more accurate and consistent wrist shot? Read the tips below to learn how to improve your wrist shot aim.

First it is important to know how to take a wrist shot I assume that you have a decent shot already and now you want to fine tune it and score more

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Playing Defense - Clearing the Puck

Rifling the puck up the boards is a great way to clear the puck from deep in your own end. Especially towards the end of a shift when your line is exhausted needs a line change.

Clearing the puck up the middle, on the other hand, can result in disaster if the other team gets to the puck while it's still inside the blue line. Whenever my brain shuts down and I screw up on this play, this guy on

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The Three Levels of Puck Control

Paul O’Donnell at Hockey from the Neck Up has recently posted part 1 in a series of in-depth articles on The Three Levels of Puck Control.

These levels of control act as a checklist that quickly and simply assists the defensive player to help decide when a puck carrier is more or less vulnerable to attack. For the puck carrier, this knowledge is of little or no consequence; but for the opposing

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The Art of Timing and Spacing By Paul O’Donnell

Have you ever noticed how great hockey players always seem to be around the puck?

Whether it’s anticipating an opponent’s errant pass, or positioning themselves perfectly while receiving a pass, the best players always manage to position themselves perfectly and be an integral part of every play while they’re on the ice. This is because the top players realize that while their superior physical

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Backchecking by Paul O'Donnell

This is the first of a series of articles from Guest writer; Paul O'Donnell
"Backchecking is Not a City in China"
My hockey buddies and I had heard this statement uttered more than once by coaches back in the early 70s while playing our youth hockey on Boston’s South Shore. Over time, this mildly humorous, if not somewhat ridiculous saying evolved into an ongoing joke between us when someone

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How to Prevent Back Injuries

A lot of guys I play hockey complain about their sore back. I'm not sure if its the hockey that's doing it, or they're just getting old. It's important to know your body's limitations, and it's important to be aware of your body position at all times. Learn to recognize those situations where your back is most a risk: bending, lifting, reaching, twisting, etc.

According to the experts at Club

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Best Hockey Commercials of All Time

Slap Shot - Samsung Mobile



Road Trip - NHL



Crosby Road Hockey Game - Gatorade




Curved Stick - Molson



Bowling - Fox Sportsnet



Big Goalie - Amstel



One Big Happy Family - ESPN




Willy's Favourites:



Hockey Fans aren't like other fans - V Cast
Proud Dad - V Cast
Our Anniversary - Washington Capitals
Fantasy Night - V Cast
Ovechkin Candy Machine - NHL/NBC
Lecavalier & Richards "

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Hockey Drills: Box Drill

Hockey Drills: The Box DrillThe Box Drill is a great hockey drill to improve your passing that reinforces the important skill of skating immediately after you pass the puck. It's call the box drill because it simulates the box formed be players in each corner of the offensive zone - as in a power play.

Hockey players love to watch there own passes. There's nothing wrong with a quick look to see

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