Let's Don the Blades

Articles In This Section:

· Let's Don the Blades

· You and Your Skates

· The Quick Start and Stop

· Developing Skating Speed

· The Fundamentals

· Skating Backwards

· The Fundamentals

Skating is to hockey as running is to football. Starting fast, changing pace and direction, bursting into top speed, and keeping good balance are common to both games. The blades on hockey skates and the cleats on football shoes provide gripping and braking surfaces which allow short, digging, breakaway steps and sure-footed, sudden stops.

But there is a great difference between the two sports, which is noticed particularly by the beginner. Running is natural — something you have done since you could first walk; skating, which requires a push-glide-push-glide succession of moves, is at first unnatural.

Once balance has been mastered, you can skate with much less effort than you can run. And you can skate at about twice your running speed, too. National Hockey League players have been clocked at 29 miles per hour. Compare this with the 15 miles per hour that a four-minute miler runs.

Being a strong, fast, well-balanced skater is the first requirement for a hockey player. Whether you are an offensive man (center, left wing, or right wing) or a defensive man (goalkeeper, left defenseman, or right defenseman), you must master skating before you learn stick handling, passing, shooting, and body checking. If you are a goalie, do not think that you do not need a great deal of practice in skating. Although you may have started out in this position because you were the worst skater on the team, remember that goaltending requires a special kind of skill and is a very vital part of hockey.