Hockey: Power Skating Cross-Over Race
Here's a drill that will improve your players' ability to use the cross-over technique to turn in tight arcs at high speed (i.e. right leg crosses over the left leg when turning to the left). Because the drill involves three players simultaneously racing around a course with a tight turning radius, it provides some of the atmosphere of a short-track speed skating competition.
Setup & Execution
Using half the rink per group, set up three lines of players facing down-ice inside the blue line at the right face-off circle. Place a cone at the two face-off circles just outside the blue line.
On your whistle, the first player from each team skates as fast as possible around the two cones, finishing when they cross back over the blue line. At this point, blow the whistle again, and the next three players race around the cones.
Players who have completed the course may play with loose pucks in the corner until the next whistle goes, at which point they join the back of a different line.
When each player has had a turn in each line, move the group to the left face-off circle and start again.
Contributor: Steve Mitchell is a physical educator & coach at Selwyn House School in Westmount, Quebec (downtown Montreal). He's in charge of the school's four hockey programs & the curriculum to develop skating at the elementary levels (skating & hockey are offered at all levels, grades 1-11).
A university player at Bishop's University and McGill in the 70's, he has his Level IV coaching certification and 20 years' experience with hockey schools, notably Howie Meeker. For a number of yeawrs, he has operated his own summer hockey school in Montreal's south shore community of Greenfield Park.
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