My Frustrations with Traditional Training Drills
Man, I used to get so annoyed with hockey drills that just… sucked. You know the ones. I spent ages chasing pucks around, feeling slow and clumsy, especially trying to skate backwards and handle the puck at the same time. It felt impossible. The old drills just weren’t clicking for me. Last winter, I decided screw it, let’s try something actually different. Found some different ways to practice the basics, stuff focused on moving fast and doing instead of thinking too much.
Trying the New Approach
Okay, first things first: gear up. Ice time is precious, so I made sure my bag was ready the night before. Hit the rink super early, before any crowds. Started with the puck protection drill everyone’s talking about. Looks simple, right? Ha!
- Focus on Body: Set up two cones kinda wide apart. Skated towards them pushing a puck. Instead of staring at the puck, I forced myself to look around, like actually scanning the ice like someone was chasing me. This felt weird! Like trying to pat my head and rub my tummy.
- Skating & Feeling: Started keeping my body between where the “defender” (the empty space!) would be and the puck. Just tried to feel the puck on my stick while skating hard towards the cones. This took several tries. Kept losing the puck like an idiot. Gotta be firm but loose? Weird feeling.
- The Cuts: As I reached the cone, I tried to make these sharp cuts, keeping the puck tight and my body low and protected. Did this over and over. Left side. Right side. So. Many. Reps. Legs were burning. It was frustrating dropping the puck constantly.
Then switched to a fast transition thing: stopping fast and exploding the other way with the puck. Again, felt awkward at first. I’d stop, and the puck would just… wander off like it had plans of its own.
- Stops: Concentrated on really digging in my edges to stop HARD and FAST. Like, throw snow everywhere hard.
- Puck Control During Stop: Big key? Keeping the puck CLOSE right when I stopped. If it drifted too far, forget it, I lost it immediately on the push out.
- Acceleration: After stopping, boom, push hard off that outside edge driving straight towards my next target. Made tiny little crossovers to get going again fast. Pushed myself harder each time.
The whole session was messy. Lots of chasing puck around. Sweating buckets. But I forced myself to focus less on perfect puck-stick-handling and more on moving my body aggressively while shielding it.
How It Actually Worked Out
Honestly, first couple times practicing these? Still sucked. But less sucky each time. The biggest difference was feeling more comfortable with the puck when I was moving fast and someone might pressure me. Instead of panicking and looking down, I started instinctively putting my body in the way more naturally while looking where I wanted to go.
During last week’s rec game? Had a defender on me hard along the boards. Normally I’d panic-lose it. But I kinda instinctively angled my body, protected the puck with my leg and stick blade, and made a little pass out. Didn’t even think about it! Just happened because of all those weird “feeling the puck” drills.
The skating part? Stopping hard and exploding out felt way more powerful and quicker than my old, sloppy stops and restarts. Still not NHL ready, obviously. But way less like a beached whale trying to move.
No Magic, Just Reps… But Faster This Time?
Look, I ain’t some pro coach. Just a dude trying to get better without wasting my limited ice time. These drills felt annoying at first. Felt unnatural. Didn’t magically make me Connor McDavid overnight. But they did make specific game-like situations feel less chaotic because I practiced moving fast and protecting the puck without overthinking it. The emphasis on feeling the puck and positioning my body while moving aggressively – that’s the secret sauce in those SSM drills, far as I can tell.
Key thing I learned? Do the movements HARD and FAST, even if you mess up. Don’t slow down to get it perfect. Mess it up at speed. Do fifty reps. Then fifty more. Then one day, you might just not panic during a game. That’s the win.
