How To Get Better at Hockey: A Player’s Guide

1. Hockey Skating Development
2. Mastering the Puck-Handling Fundamentals
3. Sharpen Your Shooting Skills
4. Build Your Hockey Fitness
5. Develop Games Sense and Hockey IQ
6. Mental Preparation
7. Performance Tracking

1. Skating Skills Development

a) Skating Speed and Agility

Skating is the foundation of hockey, and developing skating speed and agility impacts your overall performance in skating:

• Stride Technique: Focus on long, powerful strides with low stances. Practice pushing off with your skates from the inside edges to maximize power.
• Edge Work: Work on inside and outside edges doing tight turns, crossovers, and figure eights. This will allow you to be quick and change direction in different directions on the ice.
• Quick Starts: Practice explosive starts by working your first three steps. The faster you can get off the mark, the better your positioning and speed during a game.

Also, check out our 10 best hockey tryout drills.

b) Stopping and Direction Changes

Quick stopping and changing of direction efficiently are important in hockey:

• Hockey Stops: Practice on both dominant and non-dominant sides and use both edges of the skate to stop quickly but under control.
• Transition Drills: Practice transitioning from forward to backward skating and vice versa in maintaining speed and balance during a change of direction.

2. Master the Puck-Handling Fundamentals

a) Stickhandling

Good puck control means the ability to maintain possession of the puck for a longer period and thus, more chances to create an opportunity to score. The following exercises can be very helpful in gaining better puck-handling skills:

• Hand-Eye Coordination Drills: Using a tennis ball or a golf ball, practice stick-handling in cramped areas. It develops the desired reaction time and control during game situations.
• Cone Drills: Position cones or other obstacles on the ice and attempt to stickhandle around them at various speeds. Try to keep the puck close and under control.
• Off-ice stick handling: Practice puck control off the ice with either stick-handling balls or weighted pucks in small areas to work on real in-game situations.

b) Passing and Receiving

Passing is arguably the most important part of playing hockey. The ability to make accurate passes in a moment’s notice can be the key to your team’s success:

• Forehand and Backhand Passes: Use both your backhand and forehand side for passing. Make sure your passes are hard, accurate, and quick.
• One-Touch Passing: Work on one-touch passing with a partner to increase your speed and decision-making skills with pressure on.
• Receiving Pucks: Receive the pucks softly with your stick, cushioning the pass so that you can transition to your next move immediately.

3. Sharpen Your Shooting Skills

a) Shot Accuracy

Scoring goals is about not just power, but accuracy:

• Target Practice: Stick targets in the corners of the net or shoot at targets during practice to build your precision.
• Shot Variety: Practice multiple variations of shots like a wrist shot, snap shot, slap shot, and backhand shot. Offensively, this will help your game, as it makes it less predictable to your opponents.
• Quick Release: Work on quickly releasing your puck once you have it. This can catch goalies off their guards to give you better chances of scoring.

b) Shooting Under Pressure

Hockey is fast-moving, and you will rarely get wide-open opportunities to shoot. Practice shooting while under pressure from a defender, or right after making a quick move to simulate real game situations.

To learn more about shooting, here are 4 Shooting Techniques to Score More Goals.

4. Build Your Hockey Fitness

a) Endurance

The importance of endurance cannot be understated in hockey. Endurance can be built in multiple ways. Interval Training like HIIT or high intensity can help simulate the stopping and going intensity that happens in a hockey game.

b) Strength and Conditioning

Strength plays a very big role in the performance of players, starting with power shooting and fighting along the boards:

• Core Strength: The core center will help hockey players by balancing their body weight and power. Doing exercises like Russian twists, planks, and weighted crunches are great examples of core workouts to implement in your routine.
• Lower Body Strength: To build power, you can incorporate lunges, squats, and leg presses.
• Upper Body Strength: Last but not least, make sure to add in some upper body like bench presses, push-ups, and pull-ups (work up to this!). Strengthening these muscles can help with protecting the puck in games.

5. Develop Your Hockey IQ and Game Sense

a) Understanding Positioning

Hockey is a strategic game, where positioning can make or break the team’s success in the game:

• Study the Game: The best way to understand positioning, movement, and decision-making is through watching other professional hockey games. Key Tip: Try to continuously observe and anticipate plays and position changes on the rink, when without the puck.
• Situational Drills: The more real hockey game situations you can practice, the better. This could be penalty kills, breakouts, or power plays; decision-making will be that much easier when you’re playing.

b) Anticipation and Reaction

Quick thinking and anticipation are perhaps the most important skills in hockey:

• Anticipate Plays: Practice reading the play and getting a sense of where the puck will go. This helps in pursuing offensive chances, and in defending coverage.

6. Mental Preparation for Hockey

a) Confidence in Hockey

Confidence on the ice is the key to success:

• Visualization: Take time to visualize plays and situations working out successfully, such as burying the puck in the net or making that big defensive play.
• Positive Self-Talk: Replace doubt with positive affirmations to stay mentally focused, and motivated throughout the game.

Learn more about having a winning mindset in hockey.

b) Focus and Resilience

The mental approach to hockey can be tough, especially in close games:

• Pressure Moment Confidence: Practice breathing exercises that help your system when it is under stress. For example, penalty shots or last-minute plays.
• Mental Resilience: Learn from mistakes and setbacks. Each game is an opportunity for growth, and mental toughness will enable you to turn a failure or poor performance. into a comeback!

7. Use SkillShark for Tracking Hockey Your Performance

SkillShark is something no serious player should ever have to go without. By using SkillShark, you are going to be able to:

• Performance Metrics Tracking: Track relevant statistics like goals, assists, shooting percentage, and skating speed.
• Video Analysis: Coaches can upload game footage so you can review & analyze where your strengths and weaknesses are.
• Coaches’ Feedback: You have the capability to get personalized feedback from your coach or trainer on where you should focus your energy for the next level in your game.

8. Consistency and Dedication Are Key

The key to improvement in hockey is consistency and to be dedicated, with a training mindset. If you can use a combination of smart drilling, and technology, your hockey game will consistently improve. No progress happens overnight, so stay motivated, learn from your mistakes, and celebrate your wins!