Advice on how to carry the puck more?
- Thread starter Richard
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Alexander the Gr8
Registered User
Get a speed ladder and train your feet to be quicker. For endurance, I go around a football field and I run laps. Do a minute of fast running followed by a minute of walking to rest. Do that 5 times at first, and try to do it 10 times when doing the routine 5 times gets too easy. You can train explosiveness by running uphill.
I hope my advice helps.
Richard
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- Feb 8, 2012
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Alexander the Gr8
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It's commonly used by football players to increase speed and agility.
This is what I'm talking about:
HansonBro
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- May 3, 2006
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Your line mates will help you. If you're an A/B league player you should push your team captain to let you play with the players you're akin to.
It's happened to me in the past. A goalless drought ended just by playing with someone else who could keep up, instead of me trying to carry a line. 0 points to 7 in one game...
It's happened to me in the past. A goalless drought ended just by playing with someone else who could keep up, instead of me trying to carry a line. 0 points to 7 in one game...
Richard
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I'm putting up points like I used to but in a different way. I draw people to me and dish off to faster younger linemates. I just want to carry it more like I used to. I need to work on endurance and speed.
HansonBro
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If you have a role... accept it and be the best at it.
LarryO
Registered User
leftwinger37
Registered User
Other than this just being great advice, this post points out the fact that this is just a role you play in your current situation. Doesn't mean you'll never be more of possession player on a different team or in different situations, but "puck distributor" just happens to be your current role. I would also agree with HansonBro that this is probably nothing more than a symptom of who you are playing with. If the formula is working in the sense that your line is productive and not detrimental in any way, and you're winning games, don't mess with it. Embrace it.
biturbo19
Registered User
- Jul 13, 2010
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Is playing like an old man even necessarily a pure negative? Is there anything wrong with being in the right spots and letting the puck do half the work for you by moving it smartly and quickly?
Richard
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I mean I would love to be able to skate through entire teams again. But I haven't thought of it that way lol
I had something similar happen to me. I'm at a lower level of play, so take this for what it's worth. I notice as I approached 40, that I was losing a bit of my jamb. I was getting pucks poked away from me when I'd usually be able to weave through, keeping the puck just out of reach.
Slowly, I started to distribute the puck more. Turns out when I hit 40 there was actually something wrong with me. I'll spare you the details, but end result was I kind of turned into an old man, literally, and I had to pretty much relearn how to skate. When I came back, I was a shadow of myself. My speed and quickness were gone, so I couldn't out race anyone to the puck anymore.
It took me years to work my way back to semi-normal. Over the course I was playing what you describe as old-man hockey. I focused on thinking the game faster and improving my puck skills and agility. For some reason I couldn't make any headway with my speed until recently. I came across some old video of myself decided to shoot some new video to compare.
As soon as I compared the two, it was blatantly obvious. In relearning how to skate, I'd picked up some bad habits. They were subtle, and I think they made all the difference. I wasn't doing a full return on my stride. It was only about 80%. And I was pushing off a little to sideways in my stride.
Since then, I've been reevaluating everything, and I've been finding that going back to the basics and double checking them has helped me quite a lot. A lot of tiny bad habits had crept in, throwing things off. Part of it was probably due to being sloppy and a little heavier, and the other part was because I didn't notice I had lost some flexibility. The loss in flexibility truncated some of my movements enough to make a quite a difference.
So now I'm working on the re-calibrating the basics of my stride, and I'm stretching to regain flexibility. It's slow going, but I'm starting to see dividends. And I feel better than I've felt in years. Scored my first hattrick in years a couple of weeks ago, and I've found that I'm starting to be able to create a little more space for myself and open up a few more opportunities to carry the puck.
Slowly, I started to distribute the puck more. Turns out when I hit 40 there was actually something wrong with me. I'll spare you the details, but end result was I kind of turned into an old man, literally, and I had to pretty much relearn how to skate. When I came back, I was a shadow of myself. My speed and quickness were gone, so I couldn't out race anyone to the puck anymore.
It took me years to work my way back to semi-normal. Over the course I was playing what you describe as old-man hockey. I focused on thinking the game faster and improving my puck skills and agility. For some reason I couldn't make any headway with my speed until recently. I came across some old video of myself decided to shoot some new video to compare.
As soon as I compared the two, it was blatantly obvious. In relearning how to skate, I'd picked up some bad habits. They were subtle, and I think they made all the difference. I wasn't doing a full return on my stride. It was only about 80%. And I was pushing off a little to sideways in my stride.
Since then, I've been reevaluating everything, and I've been finding that going back to the basics and double checking them has helped me quite a lot. A lot of tiny bad habits had crept in, throwing things off. Part of it was probably due to being sloppy and a little heavier, and the other part was because I didn't notice I had lost some flexibility. The loss in flexibility truncated some of my movements enough to make a quite a difference.
So now I'm working on the re-calibrating the basics of my stride, and I'm stretching to regain flexibility. It's slow going, but I'm starting to see dividends. And I feel better than I've felt in years. Scored my first hattrick in years a couple of weeks ago, and I've found that I'm starting to be able to create a little more space for myself and open up a few more opportunities to carry the puck.
We all get older. Being able to adapt your game, adjust, and continue to play at a high level regardless of deteriorating physical ability(everyone slows down and gets weaker) is what separates the stud athletes...from the truly great hockey players.
Embrace the player you are. Don't try to be the player you used to be. You will likely never be that guy again(aging is a real thing, even if we don't like to admit it).
Accepting that I couldn't just take 3 strides and be faster than every guy on the ice took me a while... Once I did accept that there are quite a few guys that can keep up with me, I learned patience, how to slow the game down, and played a more cerebral game. I actually think I became a better player, even if I wasn't scoring highlight reel goals. And my production has only increased as I've gotten older.
Hockey is a very mental game, at the end of the day.
mashedpotato
full stack.
- Jan 10, 2012
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If you want to carry the puck more, do it. Worst thing that can happen is that you turn it over.
Age, Skill, speed, opponents, aggressiveness - they all vary from game to game - irrespective of them, you still have to make the fundamental decision to either do it, or not.
Choose to do it (carry the puck) if you want to; or don't.
All the other factors (age included) are just there for your pleasure to overcome.
Age, Skill, speed, opponents, aggressiveness - they all vary from game to game - irrespective of them, you still have to make the fundamental decision to either do it, or not.
Choose to do it (carry the puck) if you want to; or don't.
All the other factors (age included) are just there for your pleasure to overcome.
Spirit of 67
Registered User
Best thing to do for that, in game anyway, is to skate hard and get off. Standing around out there when you're out of gas does nothing and it takes longer to recover. I'm 51 now and shifts are like a minute. And that's playing shinny. It won't seem like much but half a season of that and you'll notice.
The next thing is, just carry the puck more. Make someone come and take it off you. If they can.
Richard
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It honestly really snuck up on me. One minute I'm able to skate through an entire team and now I can land a pass I never would have even dreamed of on the tap of a streaking teammate. I subtly adapted without recognizing that I was doing so. Also, the greatest change came from ages 29-32 for me. I really started to slow down.
As an aside, I've gone to the track three days a week doing 8 laps (running straights as hard as I can, walking curves-1/2 mile track) and its REALLY helping my game. I was so sore the first week though.
I actually carried it end to end and scored last night. Craziness.
I am running and I also started doing hot yoga again (don't laugh REALLY makes a difference).
Thanks guys for sharing, keep the ideas coming.
You'll get no laughing from me. Forget hockey, but for life in general, IMHO, keeping yourself flexible is one of the keys for maintaining your general health. I'm seated a lot during the day and was beginning to develop back and shoulder problems. TMI, but my back flexibility was getting so bad it was beginning to be a challenge to reach down and wipe my arse without feeling like I was doing a stretch.
But once I started stretching, specifically my hammies and obliques, boom, no more knots between my shoulder blades. No more groans reaching down to puck up the bloody piece of toast I dropped, and best of all, no issues with wiping.
And the great thing about it is I can do it while I'm watching TV, so no need to set aside time for it.
I was in the same boat and then for no particular reason changed my workout to include a lot of plyo. And that made a big difference in my overall hockey stamina. I was having same problem as OP: one big rush and then like three shifts of chipping it to other guys. Since adding in the plyo, I don't even think about it anymore. I'm not saying it will have same effect for everyone, it just was really surprising how much it helped since I didn't even change it for hockey.
izzy
go
YouTube is your best friend.
Lower Body Hockey Speed Workout
️
Obviously they're trying to sell you their program but you get the gist.
Lower Body Hockey Speed Workout
️Obviously they're trying to sell you their program but you get the gist.
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
With all due respect, and I speak from a player development point of view (as that's one of my jobs in real life), skip things like the speed ladder. All that does is teach you how to be good at the speed ladder. It also promotes head down activity. Dynamic exercises with a stimulus for your eye and brain to react to is where we're at these days.
I don't know what resources are available to you, but the conversation was steered heavily towards an endurance and footwork point of view...so I would recommend a rec football or soccer league where you can log a ton of minutes.
Speed ladder is ok to get the blood moving...but it's choreographed. It teaches feet to be faster in a hopscotch scenario, but it really won't make you measurably quicker in a game scenario...unless someone lays out that same ladder for you on a breakout. Equivalent to learning to drive in a parking lot...it just teaches you how to drive around a parking lot haha
I don't know what resources are available to you, but the conversation was steered heavily towards an endurance and footwork point of view...so I would recommend a rec football or soccer league where you can log a ton of minutes.
Speed ladder is ok to get the blood moving...but it's choreographed. It teaches feet to be faster in a hopscotch scenario, but it really won't make you measurably quicker in a game scenario...unless someone lays out that same ladder for you on a breakout. Equivalent to learning to drive in a parking lot...it just teaches you how to drive around a parking lot haha
Richard
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I am 32 years old and I started running back in February. I do 3 miles monday/wed/fri and I do sprints tues/thursday . My games are Saturdays and Sundays mostly.
It's an incredible difference. I mean I am literally 200% better than three months ago. I've added in some yoga, stretching everyday and pull-ups and push ups.
Last game I took the puck from behind our net and skated it all the way down for a 2 on 1 and made the pass. I was not moving my feet before. It's crazy how it all reconnects.
I would simply advise running, stretching, and pull-ups/push ups. Hot yoga once a week helps as well!
The guy was just trying to get under your skin & rattle you. It sounds like you're still playing well. A good hockey player knows how to adjust and still be effective and it sounds like you are doing that. Guy is probably jealous how good you are.
