Trimble’s Drill of the Week
Incorporating Partner Skills to Improve 1- Timers
A lot of Jr teams or High School programs do not have a dedicated skills coach or on ice skill time. I make no judgement on the set up of your operation, but its important for players to fine tune and develop their individual game each season.
A great way to do this is by incorporating partner skills for 4-5 minutes on certain practice days throughout the season. Some of these skills include:
+ Passing/ Puck Skills
+ Edge work
+ Shooting
1-timers are an essential skill to learn and are easier to teach than most think. Think of being a baseball player impacting the ball. Loaded with your bat (or stick ) back, but adjusting your feet to the placement of the pass, while keeping that stick loaded so that you only have to move it forward to impact the puck. Watch this clip of Ovechkin- (5) 8 Minutes of Ovechkin One-Timers – YouTube
Here is a video of a simple partner 1 -timer drill that you can incorporate into your practices to develop and enhance a players individual game. 1- timers are successfully executed with ones feet as much as anything. Players need to adjust their feet to poor passes both forward and behind them in order to have the timing correct with their stick. So partner up and practice 1-timers with bad passes. See video
Always use your independent or free time before or after practices to work on this skill. Small increments daily will pay big dividends later.
By Andrew Trimble
