Early in March (2014) Heidi, Colleen, Chris and myself started doing some public skating just for fun. In midst of our public skating and me almost not knowing how to skate - Colleen suggested that we sign up to learn how to play hockey. Heidi was eager to do so and in all my craziness I thought it will be cool learn skating my learning hockey! So we signed up an adult beginner ice hockey camp. Over period of 5 weeks I almost went from despair to actually having fun!
The Class
We signed up for the HES classes, http://heshockey.info/learn-to-play-beginners. In the very first class the instructor show how to skate, how to skate backward, how to do a hockey stop and there we were now ready to hockey :)! I panicked after the first class and ran up to the instructor and told him that I suck and should I still be in this class ? My only real goal for the class was not to be the worst guy out there. The coach consuled me and told don’t worry there were people even worse than you and now they play in several teams. I stayed on and even played the hockey game in the last class - starting as may be the worse player (skating with one leg only ;) ), I more or less achieved my goal of sucking less than few other people. What came to my rescue was stick handling. Turns out that playing Kanga league Cricket gave me with some stick handling skills. What I lacked in skating and confidence I made up a tiny bit with my stick handling capabilities :).
Equipment
Right before the first class I had to buy equipment worth a fortune. The play it again sports in Lynnwood and some Amazon shopping came to my rescue! I ended up getting pretty good Bauer skates.
What did I learn?
Over the period of 10 classes and 5 weeks we spent each week (i.e 2 classes) on the following capabilities:
Skating
Actually only the first class we practiced skating backwards, Hockey Stops, Moving Fast - rest of the classes we just were assumed to know how to skate (poor me ;), it took me about 5 classes and lots public skating to get past my one legged scooter skate.. ).
Stick Handling & Passing
The second week we learnt how to handle the stick and do passes.
Shots
The third week we learnt and practiced hockey shots - slap shot, etal.
Game Play - Center, Right & Left
The fourth week we learned a few game play techniques
Full Game -
The last week we actually played a full on hockey game! Of course they didn’t call offsides!
What next?
Well - my partner in crime Ms. Heidi took a public skate tumble and has been out of commission since the fourth week of the class. She broke her wrist and it will be a while before she gets back on skates, plus summer is here so why not enjoy the weather?
We will do mostly Stick and puck for rest of the summer and join the Adult Hockey League (GSHL) in fall (Oct).