There was no Sunday clinic last week (4/8) because the rink was closed for Easter. Monday’s clinic ended abruptly in the following manner.
After a brief skating drill, the first puck drill was to carry the puck from the goal-line, down the ice to the other zone, take a shot from just inside the far blue-line, and then pivot to skate backwards to the starting point. Not entirely difficult.
So I go … and the puck slips off my stick back to my feet, so I kick it up. It goes off the back of my stick to my right where one of the guys coming back to the line sees it and taps it toward me, so it’s now over to my left.
I’m trying to regain the puck and people are skating backwards toward me. Do I really need to say any more?
My head’s down and I slammed right into the back of this guy. He went down and rolled over to give me a “what the fuck?”-look, which I richly deserved.
Now for me, I didn’t go down, but since we’re both crouched and skating, his ass and my cup were at a level. Unfortunately, my cup was not entirely cupping correctly. It had ridden up a bit and the left one was, apparently, a bit out. So the left one was caught between the edge of the cup and my thigh, and the top of the cup pounded into my lower gut. It was a two-fer.
I spent the rest of that clinic on the bench clutching myself.
Today’s drill went better.
First off, three skaters each take a puck and head the length of the ice. First skater enters the zone and takes a shot. Second skater hangs at the blue-line to center, then heads into the zone for a shot. Third skater hangs along the blue-line to the left side and then heads in for a shot.
Next up was a little thing that I can’t even begin to draw a picture of. Two groups at either end of the ice. On the whistle, three skaters from each group each take a puck and head for center ice, where they enter the center face-off circle and skate around puck-handling.
Yes, six crappy, beginning skaters all trying to control their pucks while they skate around in that little circle. On the second whistle, the survivors exit the Thunderdome circle and take shots on goal.
An easy one’s next – from behind the goal-line, take the puck out of the zone, pass it hard to the far boards, then skate over to pick the puck up and take a shot.
Then we did some four-person passing, follow your pass to your next position.
And finally a drill with cones. I don’t like cones, they make my ankles hurt. Which probably means I need to do more drills with sharp turns and stop skating just in straight lines.
