Edge of Excellence

2. Will the Edge of Excellence programs help with skating quickness?

Yes. In addition to quick feet drills, players will use lightning cords while sprinting in order to underload the quad muscles and further develop their quick twitch muscle fibres. Well before the camp begins players are given a training program to follow prior to and following the skating school which will enable players to improve their quickness on a longer term basis. The exercises given to the players are ones which they can do on their own without the extensive equipment we have at the camp. For example, in lieu of lightning cords, players are encouraged to sprint hills with a declining slope of between 5–10 degrees on a grass surface so that they can underload their quad muscles and train themselves to move at speeds beyond which they could normally sprint.

Improving the player’s skating technique becomes another significant factor in increasing quickness. Most of the time we think of quickness from a standing still position. Just as important is being able to be explosive from a moving position, i.e. the ability to quickly change gears while exploding around a defenceman. We spend time on the skating technique required to do this.

To develop explosive starts from a stationary position, we encourage players to first take off from the full blade and then to explode off the ball of the foot. The plantar flexion of the ankle (driving the toe toward the ice and opening up the ankle joint) is a key element in an explosive start. If a player starts on the ball of the foot, the ankle joint is already partially open which limits its explosiveness.

We also teach players to fully extend their legs on a quick start. Often players are taught to shorten their stride on a quick start in order to move the legs as quickly as possible. However, if the player doesn’t fully open up the knee bend, he misses using the knee angle which gives him the strongest drive with each stroke. These are just a few of the subtle but significant factors in skating technique which we have players work on to develop quickness.

Another often overlooked area in developing quickness is reaction time. Some times players have good "jump" once they do react to a situation but the reason they are not getting to the puck first is they are reacting too slowly. I tell players half of quickness is in their head. We do a lot of specific on-ice drills that force players to react immediately to a quick transition or a loose puck. Much of their poor reaction time has to do with focus and that is why, where practical, we don’t use whistles to start drills. In a game, the only time a player reacts to a whistle is when the play stops. In a game, a player reacts to what he sees not what he hears. Thus, when drills are started with the movement of the puck, players are conditioned to focus on and react quickly to loose pucks.