Diane Ness
One size does not always fit all
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- Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:17
By Diane Ness
One of the best things about hockey is that a hockey team can be made up of many different types of players. Whether you’re a bigger skater or a smaller skater, everyone can bring something different to the table.
As a skating coach, I look at the hockey player’s ability to skate and the different types of skating styles. For this reason, we can’t paint all skaters with the same brush. What we consider an “elite skater” may be different from one skater to the next.
The X factor
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- Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 March 2013 19:36
By Diane Ness
As a skating instructor, my job is to teach skaters young and old the mechanics of all skating skills. Whether it’s a stride, forward crossovers or transition, all skills take a certain awareness and understanding to acquire.
The one area that is always overlooked and hard to understand is what we would call the “natural flow” of skating. This would be the effortless, natural movement that comes with every skating maneuver.
Increasing speed
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- Last Updated on Thursday, 14 March 2013 15:26
By Diane Ness
After a great weekend of watching high school hockey, I was able to look at film of a couple of these skaters from the summer. The attributes always seem to be the same while examining a skater with excellent speed.
In the photos you will notice Dylan Malmquist and Connor Hurley from the Edina High School team. These photos were taken as a screen shot from videos. We took videos of each skater at full speed durning a summer practice. The skaters that were able to stay low throughout the sprint seemed to be the fastest skaters. I may sound like a broken record but this is the first step to increasing speed.
Stride recovery
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- Last Updated on Thursday, 21 March 2013 15:05
By Diane Ness
Last summer we had the chance to meet up on the ice with one of the nation’s top speedskating coaches, Dave Cruikshank. You may have also seen Dave at the Let’s Play Hockey Expo at the Easton booth just a couple weeks ago. Every year we meet with Dave to discuss some different philosophies and techniques. Whether it’s speedskating or figure skating, there is so much to be learned in the world of skating if you look outside the box. Dave mentioned to us that speedskaters reach top speeds around 40 mph, more than twice as fast as hockey players, so there is a lot to be learned from this sport.
Skating as the offseason approaches
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- Last Updated on Wednesday, 06 March 2013 16:43
By Diane Ness
So the offseason is coming ... now what? We know we need to skate and train, but what should we do? What should we focus on?
The first thing that we have to understand is that after a long season, certain things start to happen in our skating. The most common technique flaws that start to show their head after a full season is lack of knee bend, choppy stride and a skater being bent over at the waist. The majority of practices in the winter are designed to work power play, breakouts, forecheck, D-zone, etc. As the offseason approaches, we must get back to working on our individual skill such as shooting, puckhandling, passing and, of course, skating.
