Update: Joe Sakic retirement article

Sorry guys, we weren't able to post the Joe Sakic's retirement article today but it will definitely be up tommorrow. Stay tuned and be sure to come back tommorrow.



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What Should You Do if You Are About To Get Checked?

Now that we are done with our little series on common hockey misconceptions, I thought we could talk about some basic defenses against checks.

If you play any position in hockey other than goalie, you are going to need to know how to properly take a check. If your a defenseman trying to clear the puck out of the zone, you're going to get checked by an opposing offensive player who wants to keep the puck in the zone. Same goes for forwards. If you have the puck in your opponent;s zone, you're going to get checked by an opposing defender. So, now that we have agreed that everyone will eventually get checked no matter how great of a skater you are, let's move on.

Getting check just plain sucks. It was meant to be used as a method for rubbing players off of the puck. However, in more recent years, it has evolved into a mthod of showing off strength and basically trying to kill your opponent. So, players are going to check you in the way they know will hurt you most. In most cases, this means that they would stick out their elbow slightly so as to catch you right between the sides of your ribs. Unfortunately, the only way to prevent this is to avoid the check all together.

However, in most cases you will just get a regular body check(by regular I mean getting pumelled by a 200 pound guy coming at you at 20 miles an hour). The best way to defend against these checks is to make your body as stiff as you possibly can. Think about it like this: Checking someone who is stiff is like running into a lightpost. Checking someone who is unexpecting and loose, is like checking a pillow. So, now you can see why stiffening up a bit makes a huge difference. Also, if you stiffen up, it means that you won't fall down on the ice and make a fool of yourself. You shouldn't worry about that too much, though, because even the most skilled professionals get laid out every once in a while.

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IMPORTANT: Tommorrow we will be writing an article dedicated to Joes Sakic because he is announcing his retirement=(. It will be on the home page and the new "guest writeres" page.

Misconception #3- You need equipment to practice at home

As you may have seen from my other posts about common misconceptions in hockey( ), I am very firm in believing that you can practice and get better at hockey no matter who you are, where you are, what time it is, and what you have available to you. Heck, I used to have my brothers shoot tennis balls at me. I used no stick, an old baseball glove, and a recycling bin. Seriously, I goaltended for a RECYCLING BIN!!

You really don't need any equipment to practice and get better at hockey at home. All you need is five minutes and you can absolutely improve your game. Now, I can't guarantee you that 5 minutes a day will reserve you a spot in the NHL, but, it sure does help. Think about it, five minutes is not that much time, that just means eating your breakfast a little bit faster orwaking up a couple of minutes earlier. Now, how much practice does 5 minutes really mean? Here it is.

Since there are 365 days in one year, if you practice for only 5 minutes each day and your friend practices none, by the end of the year, you will have practiced a toal of 1,125 more minutes than your friend. This is equivalent to over 18 hours of practice.

Now, if you are only practicing for five minutes every day, why would you even bother getting equipment on. The simplest things that you can do are as follows:

1.)Juggle. Juggling is extremely important for hand-eye coordination. Goalies are always taught to be able to juggle, but, why not players? Forwards have to be able to stick-handle while keeping their head up. Juggling is great for everyone.

2.)Wall-sits. Wall-sits are simple. Really, all you do is sit on an imaginary chair with your back flat against the wall and your legs about 1-2 feet from the wall. Also, your knees should bend at a 90 degree angle. This excercise works your quads and helps with the power and force that you can put into each one of your skating strides.

3.) Sit-ups. It is crucial for all hockey players to have strong core muscles. This is because hockey is the perfect combination of leg and arm strength. To make these strengths work together and perform as a whole, you must oin them with yet another strong muscle needed for maximum performance on the ice. The abs.

4.) Just rum. Even just a short five minute run(as long as the pace is quite fast) will increase your stamina, lung capacity, endurance, and it will make your heart stronger so that when you are presented with strenuous physical tasks in the future, your body can handle it with less effort.


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Misconception #2- "You Need to Lift Weights"

This is also a very common misconception about how to get stronger or how to get better at hockey. "You need to lift weights." Let me tell you something, many excercises exist that show better results than lifting weights do, so why would we still want to lift weights? Becasue it's easier and more convenient for us. We don't always have the time to do a bunch of pushups. So, we do a bunch of arm curls with some dumbells.

If you really think about it, you take just about the same amount of time on both of those things, plus, the pushups do better. We do the arm curls because they don't consume as much time, right? Wrong! If you are looking for specific results from lifting weights, it will actually take you up to 25% more time to see those results than it would if you had just taken ten more seconds out of your day to do the pushups instead. So is there actually a "GOOD" reason to weightlift? No, not really. Most people do it at gyms where they feel like they're part of a community.

After thinking about this for a while, I've realized that lifting weights seems to take place at a gym....so, people must like something about going to the gym. Well, I have the answer. People just go to the gyms because it's nice to fall into a scheduled routine. It makes you more organized with your time and results in a better day.

You may think that I'm getting off topic, but, it's true. There is no reason you should really lift weights. In fact, the risks highly outweigh the benefits. How many injuries have you heaerd of that have resulted from doing some push-ups? Probably not many. Now, how many accidents with lifting weights?....That's what I thought.

Keep that in mind for your next excercise routine and remember to SUBSCRIBE for more hints and tips

The false stereotype that you "need" ice to get better

One of the many false hockey stereotypes out there is definitely a ridiculous one. It annoys me to no end because people end up just gviing up.

Today, I'm going to write a short post describing why exactly you don't need ICE to get better at hockey.

Alright, how do you think that great players like Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux got better when they were kids, in the summer? Most of the time, they played hockey in Canada on frozen ponds or outdoor hockey rinks anyway. Even in most of Canada, it's not cold enough to play outdoor ice hockey in the summer. This is what they did to get better and what you should do to:

1. They kept in good general health. They didn't just sit down in the summer, eat chips and watch T.V. like a lot of young people do during the summers now. They probably went running or biking at least once a week. Now, this is not a lot, but, like I said, they were just probably trying to "maintain" the shape they were in, not improve it much.

2. They did off-ice training excercises. I assure you that they all worked on sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, lunges, sprints, suicides, curls. It is absolutely not necessary to lift weights during the summer to keep in shape. Several of the drills listed above are actually better for your muscle growth and development, than lifting weights. Plus, wightlifting is just a muscle simulation for the above excercises and drills.

3. They isolated each "thing" that their position on the ice entailed. If they needed to have quick reflexes and good hand-eye coordination(a goalie), then they would throw tennis balls against a wall and catch them. It doesn't take much time to do this and it actually helps with pretty much every position.

4. They played games for fun with their siblings or neighbours. If they were a goalie, they would ask friends to shoot on them while they would try to stop the shot with an old baseball mitt that they had lying around.


Two more posts will be written following this one. 1)Misconception: lifting weights
2)Misconception: you need your equipment to practice off-ice.

Who should make the first move?

In hockey, more specifically in goaltending, it is extremely important to know who should make the first move. So, I thought I'd write just a short little post about it.

Basically, if your a forward getting past a defenseman, you're told to let the defenseman make the first move. Same with a forward with a goalie.
Now, if you're a defenseman trying to stop a forward, you're taught to le the forward make the first move.
But wait, there's more. If you're a goalie trying to stop a forward on a breakaway, guess what you've been taught: "Let him make the first move, then you simply react to his move."

Yeah well, in case anyone hasn't noticed yet, there's a little pattern going on here. So, how do we know who should make the first move. Here's how it goes:

1. Techinically, if someone makes a move, great for you. That means that he has made the first mistake and you can feed off of that to give yourself the upper hand in whatever situation that your a part of.

2. What happens if your opponent is waiting for you to make the first move? Here's where it get's tricky. If you can tell that your opponent is hesitating and waiting for you to make the first move, you can use that oppurtunity to do something that suprises him. If you're a goaltender, this means doing a sudden poke check. This is the ideal time to make a sudden move because you know that your opponent is in an uncomfortable position.

So, basically I just wanted to clear that up. Keep working hard and think about this lesson when you're on the ice next.

The picture taking technique

As a goalie, you should know where the puck is going at all times. It is obviously very hard to do this throughout the entire game, so some very skilled goaltenders have developed a system of tracking the puck from the shoooter' stick, to your pads.

I give all credit for my knowledge on this subjec to hall of fame goaltender, Dan Bouchard. Here's how this extremely simple system works:

1. Focus on the player with the puck. When he shoots and the puck leaves his stick, take a mental picture of what it looks like so that you know where the puck is going.

2. When the puck arrives at your pads, then take another mental picture and see what it looks like.

This is an effetive method of slowing down your brain in a highly-stressfull situation and telling your body what to do in the most efficient waay possible. Please note that during practice, you should say "click" when the puck leaves his stick, and "click" when you make the save. This way, your brain will develop the habit of taking pictures with your mental camera every time a shot is taken. If you want to utilize this method correctly, there must be no shots that don't get pictures taken of them. No Exceptions!!If you only do it sometimes, then in the game situation, where you have a thousand different things to think about, you won't do it either.

Please listen: I have used this method for some time now. It is so helpful, that now, literally every time I use it correctly, I make the save. When I don't use it, 3out of 10 shots are scored.

Sleep: What most people don't know

Probably any person that you ask could tell you that sleeping is an imprtant part of being healthy. This is something that pretty much every person in the world knows this. However, there are many things that people don't know about sleep. Things that are a little bit more specific but crutial to your health nonetheless.

One of the things that people don't know about sleeping is that even if you don't have a sleeping disorder, you can acquire one over time by self-depriving yourself of the rest that your body needs. So, eventually, if you deprive yourself of sleep for too long it will be even harder to get to sleep when you actually really do want to get to bed.

I know most of you are now asking yourselves: Well, how does this relate to hockey?
This concept of getting the right amount of sleep is directly related to your success in hockey. Consider this:

Most people think that it is important to get lots of sleep the night before a game. This is true, but, people don't know that to have any large effect on your overall performance, you must get lots of sleep two nights before the game as well. For an ultimate performance advantage in hockey, it would be ideal to go to bed at about 9:30 at night and wake up at 7:30 in the morning....EVERY DAY. Now, it is obvious that only about 5% of the world is willing to do this voluntarily, so to simulate in the closest way possible, it is recommended that you get at least 10 hours of sleep for two consecutive nights before your game.

I truely hope that all of you take this to heart and really focus on it. I know mom always used to tell you that you need to:

1. sleep a lot.
2. eat your vegetables.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but she was very wise in saying both of those things.

Keep practicing!

Reasons to Hydrate yourself

For as long as mammals have been on the earth, it has been instinct to drink water constantly. As we humans became more advanced, we scientifically discovered the reasons that we need water. Basically, a toddler who is thirsty will go drink some water.

Now, if that little toddler knows what to do to stay hydrated, why doesn't anybody else? Any athlete must realize that hydration is important for three important reasons.

1. Keeping hydrated means that you actually have more energy. When somebody is dehydrated, the throat and lungs begin to dry up and you end up breathing harder. As a result, your body overcompensates and uses too much energy on breathing and keeping your insides moist that you won't have enough energy to perform other "less important" actions like stopping a puck.

2. Keeping hyddrated makes you feel just plain....good. Drinking water cools down your body temperature ever so slightly which means that being stuck in those 30 pounds of equipment and boiling hot helmet is a little bit more easy to handle. Seriously, who wants to be over-heated, dehydrated, and have to stop condensed rubber discs flying at your head at 85 miles per hour?

3.Drinking water helps waste control in your body and it cleans your insides. The waste just sits there.... you got yourself a poop problem.

Proper stretching

This might be something that most of you know by now but it hurts me to see people mess it up. STRETCHING IS IMPORTANT!! I have already written an article on flexibility that you should check out. Stretching will prevent injury and will keep you ready to play for a longer period of time.

STEP 1:

Do a five minute warm-up jog or do 30 jumping-jacks. This is so that your muscles are warm and do not strain when you stretch them.


STEP 2:

Now you do the stretching. The best one that you can do is to just keep your knees ever so slightly bent so you don't hyper-extend your hamstring, and hang as if you were going to touch your toes. Most people believe that you have to reach and touch your toes. DON'T!! Just hang there in place and gravity will do the work for you. Make sure that when you stop this stretch that you get up slowly so that you do not hurt your back.

Another good stretch for hockey is the groin stretch. Get on your hands and knees on the ground, then spread your knees about 2 feet apart and adjust as needed. Make sure that you feel a slight tugging feeling in both the right and left part of your groin. This will increase your range of motion and overall maneuverability.

Step 3:

After the game, practice, or workout, make sure that you just do some sort of really simple stretch, probably the stretch described in the beginning of step 2. This ensures that you don't feel sore when you go home. If you're sore when you get home, it will hurt more to stretch the next time you go to practice.