Off-ice puckhandling surfaces?

brother52

Registered User
Sep 15, 2006
44
0
Russia
I'm looking into getting a surface to practice stickhandling at home with a puck. I do practice with a stickhandling ball and it helps, but a puck still feels way too different, IMO. Currently I found three options:

1. PhatPuck or FlyPuck (http://www.mrassist.com/viewproduct.asp?ID=56675894&categoryID=24). A special kind of puck that glides over any hard surface.

2. Hockey Heat folding surface (http://www.mrassist.com/viewproduct.asp?ID=56675726&categoryID=24)

3. SkillPad hard surface (http://www.nudo.com/nu-ice/skillpad/)

I would be interested to hear your opinions, or best of all, first-hand experiences with any of these. DYI ideas are also welcome.
 

Ruhnie

Registered User
Feb 1, 2007
76
0
Dallas
I'm looking into getting a surface to practice stickhandling at home with a puck. I do practice with a stickhandling ball and it helps, but a puck still feels way too different, IMO. Currently I found three options:

1. PhatPuck or FlyPuck (http://www.mrassist.com/viewproduct.asp?ID=56675894&categoryID=24). A special kind of puck that glides over any hard surface.

2. Hockey Heat folding surface (http://www.mrassist.com/viewproduct.asp?ID=56675726&categoryID=24)

3. SkillPad hard surface (http://www.nudo.com/nu-ice/skillpad/)

I would be interested to hear your opinions, or best of all, first-hand experiences with any of these. DYI ideas are also welcome.

I just purchased a Skill Pad earlier this week to help train my wife, who is starting out playing. I have been extremely surprised at how realistic it feels with a regular puck on it. It's very smooth, a large surface, and seems pretty durable. I haven't set it up anywhere yet where I can shoot off of it, but for stickhandling in the living room it's awesome. Can't comment on the other 2.
 

nikebauer

Registered User
Jul 21, 2005
867
0
Vancouver
skillpad seems very expensive, and I'm not sure how much my stickhandling can improve with only a 3x6 surface to work with
 

brother52

Registered User
Sep 15, 2006
44
0
Russia
Thanks a lot for the replies, guys. Regarding Skillpad being expensive, I can't really agree with it. I just called a firm selling Viking Ice panels, and was surprised to find out that they are some $300+ a piece, size being on the same order as SkillPad's. The surface offered at supergliding.com looks awesome, but $600 is way more than I can afford.

One interesting thing that gets mentioned at supergliding.com is that traditional syntetic ice surfaces are plastic and use silicone lubricants so they feel "oily". I know that silicone grease is widely available and cheap. One compound used in RC modeling is even branded "Dry Ice". So I wonder if getting such a grease and putting it on a plastic surface be would yield a decent puckhandling traning aid. Please tell me if you have a reason to think it won't work, because this is what I'm going to try.
 

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