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Ice Hockey Skating Techniques
Skating is the foundation of ice hockey. If you can't skate it doesn't matter how good of a passer or shooter you are. Learning to skate well is the most important thing you can do to improve your hockey skills.
Bend Your Knees and Keep Your Back Straight
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The most crucial technique to improve your skating is to make sure you bend your knees. Bending your knees lowers your center of gravity, improves your balance and allows you to get more power with each stride. You want to get as low as you can. Ideally your knees should be bent at a 90 degree angle. Watching videos of such great skaters as Paul Coffey or Pavel Bure can provide you excellent examples of proper skating technique.
While it is important to get as low as you can, you need to make sure that you are bending at your knees and not at your waist. If you bend at your waist, it will throw off your center of gravity and make it easier for you to be knocked down. Keeping your back straight also makes it easier to keep your head up while skating, which any hockey player can tell you is imperative.
Get The Most Out of Every Stride
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With every stride that you take you want to make sure to fully extend your leg in order to get the most power possible. It is very important that you fully return your leg under your body in order to put it in the proper position to begin the next stride. You also need to make sure that you have all of your body weight centered over your skates. If your body weight is not centered over your skates then you are not getting the most out of your strides. The more weight that you put into each stride allows you to exert more force and therefore increase your speed and acceleration.
Other Important Tips
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Using your edges properly is another part of improving your skating. Position the edges of your skate blade properly in order to maximize the amount of force that you exert with each stride. When pushing off it is ideal to have your edges at a 45 degree angle from the ice.
While it is necessary to have two hands on your stick throughout most of a hockey game, when you are trying to reach top speed it is beneficial to take one hand off the stick so you can get a proper arm swing going. Swinging your arms forward and backward while skating creates momentum in the same way that swinging your arms does while running.
Keeping your head up is possibly the most important part of playing hockey. It's dangerous to skate with your head down. You never know when an opponent can come out of nowhere and deliver a crushing body check. Keeping your head up can also greatly improve your skating. It leads to proper posture and helps maintain your center of gravity directly over your skates.
eHow Article: Ice Hockey Skating Techniques
