Snow Snow Snow

On the way home from work I was questioning whether we should have held off on canceling practice. I don’t like to lose a practice, and two in a row is twice as bad, but the weather started to get worse the closer I got to the lake. I had gone from clear sunny skies at the office to dark overcast clouds with lake effect and blowing snow whipping across the fields onto the roadway. When the area you live in and near is making national news, you might want to think twice before you head out the door for evening hockey practice. Snow is a part of life in the north country, but this last week has been above average winter weather. Keep the kids home, warm, dry, and off the roads. The rest has a positive effect sometimes, maybe this is just what we need. I had planned on working on our neutral zone transition and dumping the puck. I was going to run a simple drill where we dump and chase the puck with two defenders and our goalie in net. Remember to dump the puck so that it is difficult for the goalie or defense to play the puck, but ring it or land it on the boards so that our attack can get to it, or get to the defense quickly (if they get to the puck first) and pressure the puck.(Use the glass too).
I only want the puck dumped if there is a greater chance that we will lose the puck to a turnover on or near the far blue line, than moving the puck deep into the offensive zone. Holding onto the puck too long sometimes works to the other team’s advantage. That’s why I like the quick passes and fast skating to move the puck through open ice as opposed to the 20 second puck carry through the gauntlet. Once the puck is dumped you have to move quickly to recover it. Something doesn’t sound right about throwing the puck away, but it’s better to have the puck deep in the other end, than a turn over that catches your defense back peddling to stop a rush. Dumping the puck in badly can also work against you if your not driving hard to pressure the puck, or you only toss it to the other team's defense. Defense equals two defense men and a good goalie who can stop the puck behind the net for his teammate, or field the puck back to his forwards. We were also going to work on placing a skater on the weak side of the neutral zone in open ice looking for a pass off the far boards to move around the play. The third issue we were going to work on is passing back to the defense in the defensive zone to move the puck around the other team trying to hold the middle of the ice in the neutral zone on our side of the red line. If you’re in need of the workout you would have gotten from the practice - feel free to shovel snow and brush off your parent’s cars. It worked in the old days.