The Importance of Stick Skills
STICK SKILLS - THE IMPROVEMENT ON THE SMALL DETAILS & CONSISTENCY
Tryouts are coming up and players ranging from 10-14 are at a crucial age to develop the skills necessary for a growing career. Many players don’t spend enough time practicing any type of stick handling or forearm strength building at home or off ice. A good majority of the private lessons that We have taught has shown a lot of players do not have the training added into their schedules. A lot of it is consistent practice and the continued importance of perfecting your craft. So much speed and skill are in the game today that to get the best chances on either offense/defense you have to focus on the small details and nuances of stick skills.
Stick skills contains stickhandling, puck control, puck placement, stick lifts, puck protection, and much more. The ability to move with the puck and combine stick skills with skating and edge work are the winning combination to get the most out of game situations and chances. The more you learn and practice a skill and continue to improve, that harder the training and practicing should be.
We like to stress how important it is to start with technique first, then doing it while skating(moving), then do it with speed, then do it with pressure. Spending around 15-20 minutes every day for even as short as a week will show a huge improvement. Players now can hardly do reps longer than 30 seconds when it comes to pure stick handling. Building forearm strength is critical with stick skills like building leg strength for skating.
Our stick skills camp will be split into two sessions with each session focusing on a different aspect of stick skills. We will spend the first session on technique and instruction with strength building and quick hand demonstrations and drills. Day two will focus on all skating with the puck and proper puck handling and protection with speed and strength. We want to focus on repetitions, forearm strength building, and correct technique. We also want to demonstrate and stress how important it is for players to practice what we show them at home or off ice.
This camp has a great coaching staff and collaboration. We have Coach Nick hosting the session and with the new rebranding, is ready to push these players with new content and a better camp.
Joining Coach Nick will be a very respected coach in the area in CJ Stellabotte. CJ Stellabotte grew up playing locally with the Pittsburgh Hornets and Junior Penguins organizations. CJ then began coaching back in Pittsburgh with the Team Pittsburgh AAA program. In his first year behind the bench Team Pittsburgh competed at USA Hockey Nationals placing 3rd at the 16u level and 6th at the 14u level. He is now a skills and power skating coach for the Pittsburgh Junior Vengeance, Pittsburgh Steel City Ice Renegades, and Pine Richland Hockey. Coach CJ is also a stick handling specialist and will demonstrate a lot of drills and techniques that will give the players in this camp a good idea of how much practice on even the small skills is crucial. We couldn’t be more excited to have CJ for this camp!
This will be a great camp and high tempo atmosphere, we hope to see you there!