Hockey Drill Series – Volume 1:Drill #2
Making Excellent Passes…Every Time

In last month’s hockey drill we wrote about making a pass, receiving a pass and then taking a shot. In today’s drill we are going to simply focus on making excellent passes – everytime. It’s important in hockey to make good strong accurate passes. Your team mates will certainly appreciate your ability to pass well, and certainly so will your coaches.

A couple of things we want to focus on is the accuracy and also the strength of the pass. First let’s consider accuracy. In order to be accurate you need to define the target. Generally the target is going to be the receivers stick – or more accurately, the blade of the stick. Start out with two players on with skates on the synthetic ice. If your rink is big enough then position yourselves about 20 feet apart to start. If the rink is smaller then go with whatever space you have. Player 1 makes a pass to player 2. The idea is to get the puck right on the stick such that the receiving players does not have to move the stick much or at all. If you can get used to doing this over and over then it just creates good life long passing habits. Just focus on the target not on the puck. If you focus on the target then your brain will know what to tell your body to do to get the puck there. It really does work! If you are having trouble with that then get closer together or slow it down a bit until you can control it accurately. Once you have it down then move further apart and keep going.

Once you are able to continuously get the puck on the tape then you can start to put some more force on the pass and make them progressively harder passes. But maintain your accuracy while passing with more zip. As the passes become harder it will become more important to develop “soft hands” and cradle the stick just as the puck gets to your blade. What you are trying to do here is pull back the stick just slightly to “absorb” the pass as its gets there. If you don’t cradle the puck then it will hit your blade and skip over. You want to develop those soft hands by rolling your top wrist back and forth to “cradle” or develop a rocking sensation.

So essentially that’s the drill. I know its super basic but if you never learn how to make an accurate pass you won’t go very far in hockey. Spend some time on this and before you know it you’ll be impressing your team mates and your coaches and becoming a more valuable player.

Until the next drill, keep practicing!

SmartRink Synthetic Ice Rink Hockey Drills