Unless you have mastered a particular skating maneuver, you won’t use it in a game.

All of our instructors truly enjoy teaching the Elite Workshop. It gives us an opportunity to share the depths of our knowledge gained over many years of practice and experience with players who are self-motivated and eager to quickly put these techniques into practice. As an instructor, it’s quite fun teaching a clinic of this level knowing the group is able to handle the material and can perform the required maneuvers with a high degree of excellence. There really are no limits to the skills you can acquire.

In addition to an in depth analysis of the basic skating techniques, we also explore specialized maneuvers while showing players exactly how to incorporate them into their game. After covering several of these techniques with this process, it can really change the way you play.

One of these techniques involves teaching players how to quickly accelerate by using their toes. When performing a toe start, a player can execute an extremely rapid push while receiving the full power of a normal stride. In most situations, a player starting with their toes is able to execute 3 to 4 pushes in the same amount of time they could normally do 2 strides. Keep in mind, a strong skater can reach full speed in as few as 4 strides.

We also investigate the use of this technique in other skating maneuvers such as in high speed turns (tight turns) and transitions. We always encourage players to look for ways to incorporate toe starts into any area of hockey that requires acceleration.

By Head Instructor Alan Noble