Jimijames

I understand this problem. Sometimes, kids have personal issues that effect their game. He is obviously afraid to take a risk in a game that might lead to a mistake because he is afraid people will judge him poorly for it. Some kids really need to be taught that their performance on ice is not correlated to their self worth. Some kids grow up feeling it is. And it really effects their ability to be aggressive, and try things when the game matters. He needs to learn that his own value as a human being has nothing to do with his athletic performance or the mistakes he might make while performing. I recommend seeing a psychotherapist who is qualified for this type of thing. There are therapists that specifically work with young athletes in this area.

Good question. Here’s how you do it. You have to get the shaft of your stick quite low to the ground, and place the width of your stick blade on top of the puck. The puck MUST be in the middle of the width of your blade. If the bottom of your blade is below the puck, or the top of your blade is above, it won’t work. Now, once you have the blade placed centred over the puck, when you apply downward pressure on the shaft, you should see the top edge of the puck start to lift off of the ice. This is because the edge of the puck is rounded, and when the blade is centred properly and the downward pressure is applied, it’s forcing the opposite edge of the puck to protrude off of the ice a bit. Once you manage to achieve this, it’s only a matter of the drag and scoop, because the puck is already tilting upward. Now if you do a toe drag, and scoop, you should be able to scoop that puck up onto your blade as it goes from curve side down to curve side up. Good luck. Practice it like this, and you’ll soon get it.

Hello, and good for you to be taking up the greatest sport. I’ve played since 5, I am 47 now. I learned to skate through power skating programs, hockey camps, etc. , but you absolutely can learn a great deal from a figure skating coach. My cousin happens to be a former Skate Canada coach, who now works in Michigan. All hockey coaches in Canada will tell you that it cannot hurt to take some lessons from a figure skating coach. They will have so much to teach you about - yes - edge work, pivoting, balance control, centre of gravity - especially balancing. A lot of players are too manly to show up to try their hand at pirouettes, lol. But there are figure skating coaches who do specific figure skating lessons just for hockey players. And you go in your equipment & bring your stick- yet you are learning figure skating components. I think it’s a great thing to do. You should definitely go for it. 😃

Hello, I just turned 47 myself. My training is still specific to hockey, in the gym. Old habits I guess. But I have to say that I’ve changed a few things in the more recent years that have allowed me to go on essentially unimpeded with the same type of programs I used as a younger man. 1) I put a lot more effort into the recovery phase, with thorough yoga stretching pre and post workout. Hydrotherapy as often as I can. Continuous research into how to best help a body recover. Knowledge is power. 2) while I’ve kept the same level of intensity — increased it even — my overall volume of work is lower. Just as an example, I don’t do 6-8 sets of deadlifts anymore. I just pyramid up with three, the third being a 4RM. 3) I have altered my diet greatly from being a super high meat protein diet, to being a 95% vegetarian diet w/ just 5% meat protein, eaten one of every 10 meals approx. This type of pseudo-vegetarianism has changed the way my body manages energy, and that is per some of the latest science, that isn’t entirely popular as yet. I tried it just to see if certain claims would come to fruition, and I’ve found that they did. My endurance energy level has gone through the roof. I have yet to determine the detriment to muscular hypertrophy/hyperplasia, but I suspect there is one that I hope to find a way to mitigate. 4) I now also practice time restricted eating on a daily basis, where I don’t consume any food other than coffee from wake up until about 8-9 pm. It sounds odd, but once my body acclimated to this tactic, I am no longer hungry or interested in food for the duration of my entire day, despite the fact I usually do one strength/conditioning workout session in the morning, and one plyometric, or on ice work out in the after noon. I just don’t start getting hungry until around 7. And I’m left with more than sufficient energy for a whole day of activity. It feels weird, in a good way. It’s like, for a whole day, my body never has to switch from musculoskeletal blood flow into digestive system blood flow. And I feel more energetic thought the day because of it. Makes u realize that eating often throughout the day means your body has to keep diverting resources to and from systems other than the musculoskeletal system, which is obviously less efficient than just doing the switch once per day. All these things I’ve made part of my training as a 40+ athlete, come with better results than that which I saw even in my earlier decades. Some of these things weren’t even understood when I was 25, or, 35. So we’re lucky actually. We got older but science got better, and we can benefit from that. I highly recommend exploring some of these. And good luck to you.