Ice Hockey Skating Tips

Bend Your Knees and Keep Your Back Straight

• 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 when you skate. Watching videos of great skaters like Paul Coffey or Pavel Bure can give you an excellent example of proper skating technique.

  While it is important to get as low as you can, make sure that you do not bend at your waist. If you bend at your waist it will throw off your center of gravity and make it much easier for you to be knocked down. Keeping your back straight also makes it much easier to keep your head up while skating, which any hockey player can tell you is absolutely imperative.

Get The Most Out of Every Stride

• 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

• Using your edges properly is another huge part of improving your skating. You want to position the edges of your skate blades 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 to 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 very beneficial to take one hand off the stick so you can get a proper arm swing going. Swinging your arms forward and backwards while skating creates momentum in the same way that swinging your arms while running does.

  And finally, keep your head up. Keeping your head up is possibly the most important part of playing hockey. First and foremost it's very 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 you maintain your center of gravity directly over your skates.