How to Handle the Puck in Ice Hockey

Video Transcript

"Hey, I'm Tim McKeig, of the UNCW Seahawks, and today, I'm going to show you how to handle the puck in ice hockey. First things first, you want to worry about your body posture. Usually, your legs are going to be about shoulder width apart, knees bent; good posture over the puck. Next will be your hands. If you're right handed like myself, you're going to want to press your left hand at the top of your stick, and usually, aid about four arms length down the shaft for your supporting hand. To start off, you're going to want to great, look down at the puck, put it in the middle of your stick from side to side. This is usually referred to as cradling the puck. It's all in your wrists. You want to make sure you're getting it and cupping the puck, cupping the puck. You don't want to go too hard. It's going to be hard to handle it and keep control of the puck. Usually, your body, you're going to want to move with the puck; side to side, to keep good control. Usually, this is done while skating, instead of stationary, but a good way to start would be stationary. Now, some of the different techniques that are used while stick handling the puck would usually be out to the back hand, all the way to the forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand, forehand, basic. And you see how my body's moving with the puck, to help cradle it. You don't want to have your body too stiff, or you're going to lose control of that puck pretty easily. Now, after the basic steps, you can move into some more advanced cradling methods, such as the toe pull, which would be out to the front of the toe, as you can see. Pull it back in towards your body, and once again, cradle that puck right there in the middle of your stick. Just some of the other methods you can use. But you want to make sure you get that basic down, back and forth, back and forth with the cradle. And that's how you handle the puck in ice hockey."