Hockey Skating On Outdoor Ice

I have Kevin T (from Facebook’s Hockey Drills Only group) to thank for the video below, for giving me permission to post it here, and for reminding me of a few things I may have previously forgotten to share with CoachChic.com readers.

I doubt there’s a problem with Kevin and his son, but I feel the need to suggest here and now that hockey-time away from the rink has to be a little different than the time spent at the rink. You see, over my many years in the game, the number of kids I’ve worked with are up in the (tens of) thousands. So, I eventually got to recognize differences in those who excelled at the game — and reached very high levels — and those who at some point eventually dropped by the wayside. And, while the ones who “made it” could be tough as nails in the heat of battle, they almost always laughed a lot, and they especially laughed a lot as they were taking on new challenges in a practice atmosphere. Yes, the most successful in the end might fall on their faces trying something crazy, they’d laugh and try it again, shake their heads and laugh while trying again, and eventually they’d dawgone get it. The kids who dropped by the wayside? They’d get discouraged at the first setback, and seemingly fear looking foolish on future tries.

My point from all that: Parents should attempt to make times away from the rink fun, and as loosey-goosey as possible. Hey, there has to be a place where players can experiment with no pressure, and training anywhere away from formal activities seems the best idea to me.

Okay, as for that outdoor ice… It might only take one time for skaters to discover that there’s a big difference between our favorite indoor rink’s ice and most outdoor patches. If you didn’t know, your local rink’s ice is made under controlled conditions, while outdoor ice is usually frozen at extreme temperatures. That makes the outside ice extremely hard, and extremely tough on our skate blade edges. So is there almost always some microscopic sand or silt or whatever kind of grit blown across the outdoor skating surfaces. And those combined conditions almost guarantee one’s edges will be stripped in a matter of a few twirls around the pond or backyard rink.

So again, I’m probably not telling the experienced skater anything new here. However, I still want to suggest a couple of things to new or experienced hockey folks:

• It might make sense that a serious player own two pairs of skates — one for indoor skating, with the other pair usually referred to as the “pond skates”.

• If a player is going to use only one pair of skates in both venues, it’s imperative that those skates be resharpened before moving back from outdoor to indoor ice.

Okay, did I miss anything? If so, please let me and others know down below!