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Hockey Skills

...building blocks of hockey performance

Hockey skills are building element of every player's performance - overall hockey player's performance and quality depends on 3 major parts, which are mutually related.

It is hockey skills, condition and mental strength.

This, above mentioned statement, is very efficient to have always on your mind while practicing or coaching any of many skills.

Ice hockey is builded from huge number of different skills and techniques. We divide them into several major categories and many subcategories:

But one more time, all of them are based on:

• speed
• agility
• strength
• endurance

SKATING

• forward
• backward
• crossover forward
• crossover backward
• stops
• turns
• stopped turn
• start
• straight
• side
• turn-round
• from forward to backward
• from backward to forward

STICK-HANDLING

• dribbling
• short
• wide
• front of the body/aside of the body
• tricks
• stick-checking
• poke-check
• block stick
• lift opponent stick
• laying stick on a ice

SKATING WITH PUCK

• a stick in one hand
• a stick in two hands

All (most of them) above mentioned hockey skills are measurable. So, it is possible to measure and compare each player performance with others. It makes much easier to find out weaknesses and reasons of those. Find out more info in hockey tests page - watch a short video clip (opens new window)..

SHOOTING

• forehand
• wrist shot
• short
• long
• snap shot
• slap shot
• aerial high
• backhand
• one timer or one touch shot
• deflection

BLOCKING A SHOT

• standing position
• on one knee
• on both knees
• laying to the shot

PASSING

• forehand/backhand
• wrist
• snap
• flip pass
• one timer or one touch pass
• aerial high pass
• by skate kick
• drop pass

TAKING A PASS

• pulling
• "hard"
• by skate
• by hand

BODY-CHECKING

There is pointless to divide body-checking into some categories, for example by part of the body used for checking, however we can find different ways how to use a body-checking according different game situations.

GAME HOCKEY SKILLS

• Offense
• 1 on 1
  There are many ways how to play this situation. It depends on individual player and particular game situation.
• 2 on 1
• 3 on 1
• 3 on 2
• 2 on 2
• Defense
• 1 on 1
  There are many ways how to play this situation. It depends on individual player and particular game situation.
• 1 on 2
• 1 on 3
• 2 on 3
• 2 on 2

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break outs
middle zone offense
offense zone
fore-checking
middle zone defense
defense zone

Power play

• 5 on 4
• 5 on 3
• 4 on 3
• 6 on 5 and 6 on 4 (playing without goalie)

Penalty Killing

• 4 on 5
• 3 on 5
• 3 on 4

CLASSICS HOCKEY GAME SITUATION

Over-numbering
Doubling
Cycling
Crossing
Switching position and substituting
Face Offs
Shifts
Fights
Penalty Shots - watch a short video clip (opens new window).
Break away
Rebounds
Front of the net traffic

IMPORTANT PARTS OF HOCKEY SKILLS

Peripheral vision
Faking moves, passing and shooting
Communication players each other on a ice
Personal Defense

GAME SYSTEMS

• with center back
• with left wing back
• other variants
• matching lines
• matching defense lines

Let's take a look at mentioned hockey skills from two different standpoints

player | coach

Hockey player can find a lot of video clips in hockey-site.com database and at other resources.

The best way how to develop your hockey skills is to watch the best players. How they do particular skill, move or how they solve different hockey situation. Our goal is to bring to you as much video resources as possible.

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