Back in the saddle

My health returned, I went back for Ass-Kickin' Part Two today with my coach. Somehow, even without much ice time at all between the last lesson and this one, I picked up right where we left off and was doing well with the stuff he taught me last time. Today though, we pinpointed an area where I need a lot of work, and will be addressing that more aggressively next week. I had explained to him last time that I learned on concrete, so I have a tendency to dive desperately to the side instead of sliding. That became very apparent this morning while running one drill in particular, so I was glad that he said we'd work on that a lot next week. He showed me a few different ways to recover by sliding to make the next save, now I just have to incorporate it and make it instinct.

But one reason I'm writing is because I don't want to forget one drill we did that I think would be really helpful for me, if the team ever gets ice time for practice like we did as a group several months ago. I would need three other people to work with me, but I think even 10 mintues of this each time we rented ice would make a big improvement. Coach called this a "classic rebound drill". Basically, one person stands with a pile of pucks almost out at the blue line. The other two people are positioned on each side, at the hash marks. The guy with the pucks shoots low, with the idea being that I direct it to one side or another. If there's a rebound more toward the front, the guy on that side goes after it and takes another shot, and keeps shooting until I either cover it, or send it into the corner. I get "points" for putting it where I want it to go (the corner) or covering it, they get points for scoring. The idea is for me to react quickly after the initial save and set up again for the rebound shot, which is something I need a lot of work on, because I'm still trying to use concrete-roller-hockey technique on ice, and I could get there so much quicker and more compact if I make use of ice techniques.

Ok I'm sure everyone's eyes are all glazed over, but because I know a few of my teammates read this, I wanted to get it down before I forgot the details. Hopefully there will be some time in the future where we can run this drill.