trinituner

For someone that has been playing only a few months you are doing really well, and to the people that say you have no chance to play even in a lower rec league are talking bollox, who is anyone to say what your motivation is??.... I would get a skills pad if you do not have one and look online for off ice stick handling drills, as I keep banging on you need to be consistent to get better and do not have the thoughts of "not today but tomorrow" have a daily training routine. I am a huge fan of one to one coaching and you do need some pointers to help with body postion and technique but that is very common even for advanced players, is there someone local who is a coach that can help you??.. Do not shy away from roller hockey, there is enough "ice like" chassis out there now that make the transition from roller to ice far easier than it once was defo something to look into as you can train almost anywhere. 5 minutes shift are no use what so ever, 45 seconds to 1 minute max is what you need to aim for sadly this is rare in rec hockey normally due to poor coaching or the lack of a coach , hence you are blowing out your ass after the first period. All in you need to take the ruff with the smooth and be happy with small gains in your game, as you get older it does get harder but you still have 30+years to play this game just be consistant..

Not read all the posts but here is my 2pc, To really get the most of what you are learning you need to be FIT... Far to many people get no where near their potential due to poor fitness. Hockey is very unique in what demands it puts on your body you really need to be a complete athlete, now that is not to say that if you are 100 pounds overweight you cannot compete as you can still do a job however.. Hockey is not a twice a week activity that you do then go off and eat shit and drink beer then wonder why you are dead after the warm up, you need to really take your overall fitness seriously if you are passionate about getting better. It can be something as simply as doing a hour of cycling 5 days of the week, you would see a massive difference in your endurance if you maintained this esp if you are unable to get on the ice to skate as often as you would like. Also remember that you gain endurance by steady excercise not full out lung busting, just watch a morning skate for a pro team it is very controlled and about going through the drills at 70% pace, I would say about 1/2 of your on ice training should be at this pace so you can gain more time during the drills concentrating on what you are doing. Again I see players trying to do things way to fast and doing it wrong then getting pissed and hating the session.

I was always nervous of spending to much time playing roller trying to avoid the issues of messing up my ice stride that was before Tuuk released the Rocker chassis that in my case worked great, I have not played roller in years though and would most probably use SPRUNG chassis if I started. I was also unsucessful in finding a standard roller chassis that I was able to rocker that felt like my ice blades.. Of all the players I coached roller hockey guys making the transition to ice was by far the hardest transitional situation I faced. I will say though that "if" they got up to speed with their skating then they tended to be very very good players as their stick handling was better than the pure ice guys..

I would not compare normal punters to NHL players as the option of a new grind between periods or at anytime for that matter is something us lowly folks can only dream of, I am sure my hollow would change if I had this option..

Spending good money on a skate session (something I rarely do) to walk into the rink and see 1/2" of worn snow ice and no chance of the zamboni coming out before the public session starts... Lee valley Ice rink should be appalled...

Comes down to the skater, If I have learned something its that there is no "right way/style/design" when it comes to skates and setup.. I weigh 199lb and skate 3/8. Trial and error is the only way to find out what works but sadly it isnt that easy as the type of ice you skate on will have a big effect on how your skate feels..