Stay On Your Feet

It’s hard to believe, but in the 70’s when I was growing up, we had ice- real ice in real outdoor rinks. The parks and recreation crews would flood the rinks, but the coaches and players would shovel it off after it snowed or got tore up. I walked to the rink around the corner from my house and spent a lot of time with just my stick, skates and a puck. Often I had the whole rink to myself early in the morning. Nobody tied my skates for me, I tied my own from age 6, and although I did fall once in a while, I sure tried to avoid it. As spring approached the rink often had a thin layer of water on top of the ice. You didn’t want to fall, because you didn’t want to get soaking wet. I see a lot of young kids spend too much time lying on the ice. You should try to stay on your feet as much as you can. Yes, there will be times that you go down, and you should know how to take a fall, heads up and all, but don’t go down at the drop of a hat. You need to be in the game, and that means on your feet moving. This all goes back to working on your skating skills. You need to have the ability to maneuver and have good balance by having a good center of gravity. I mean a low center of gravity that helps you maintain your stance on the ice.
Finally, by peewees you should be able to dress yourself and be ready for practice. If you can’t tie your own skates, practice tying them at home. If you want to be a hockey player, then you need to work at it. Nothing comes easy, but if you work at it, you’ll figure it out soon enough.