"Hello, Canada, and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland." - Foster Hewitt
This is my second entry of the Slapshot Alley Journal. I am keeping track of our expansion to teach more Canadian hockey players how to shoot with proper technique.
Building the Second Alley
The first Slapshot Alley was built with a pretty good layout, but it wasn't perfect. The perfect layout would be the same space of a regulation size hockey rink from the blue line in, but including some important measurement tools like an accuracy scoreboard (Targets hit / Shots taken), a power scoreboard (Miles Per Hour), and a timer to measure the quickness of the player's release. The most important thing I learned at the UBC Human Kinetics Coaching Program was the use of qualitative and quantitative feedback to help athletes improve their skills.
Qualitative Feedback
Hockey players need feedback in order to understand what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong. Qualitative feedback is this. The coach observes the player and lets them know if they are rotating the wrists, leaning forward, opening the blade too much, not trying hard enough etc.
The slow motion video analysis with a side by side comparison with a pro hockey player is the best thing for the player's qualitative feedback. Sometimes young players just don't listen to you, or don't believe you, and they continue to make mistakes... the video always resonates with the player. They see Connor McDavid with his head up, and they see themselves with their head down, and it triggers them to try to change. They want to be the next Connor McDavid so it is the best motivation to inspire the young athlete to focus and learn.
Quantitative Feedback
Players need to know what are their accuracy, power and speed measurements. These measurements show the player how good their shot is without any opinions... strictly facts.
The accuracy is measured with a target and distance. Beginners need a big target otherwise they can get discouraged very easily, so the very first level requires the player to be able to lift a ball up over an obstacle and hit the wall. Once they accomplish this 10 times in a row, then they can move on to level 2.
The final level for accuracy would be shooting from a long distance (30 feet) and shooting at the small targets on the tarp. We measure how many times the player can hit the target out of 20 shots and then calculate their shooting percentage. There are about 10 levels in between the first and last level... this is what I call my shooting instruction progression. Every lesson, we keep track of everyone's shooting percentage and then we let the player know how well they compare with their age group.
The power of the player's shot is measured with a rader gun. At BASE Hockey we used sportsradargun.com radar gun which is a brilliant cheap gun. It is very accurate and fun because it makes a beep every time you shoot and holds the score on the scoreboard until the next shot.
The new Slapshot Alley is going to try a new radar gun from Stalker.sport radar guns. They are the leading radar gun company for baseball. I would like to find out how the NHL is measuring the shots in the games on TV as the NHL is starting to track every shot's power now. On the weekend, Alex Ovechkin scored a hat-trick and one of his wrists shots measured over 90mph.
The quickness of the player's shot is measured by a timer, but this measurement tool is not as accurate as it requires the coach to control and the coach can make mistakes here. So I'm still working on a way to measure the player's quick release without the discrepancy of human error.
Today
Feb 26 2025
Today I started at 6am with 4 Richmond Ravens. One of these girls is working so hard and I can tell she has the heart to play in the PWHL so bad... it's awesome. Does she have the talent, the dedication, the mental and physical endurance to achieve the highest level? That's the big question. We coached very talented young kids like Ty Ronning, Matt Barzal and Sasha Mutala at BASE Hockey so it was easy to tell that these kids had the potential at a very young age to make it to the pros (insert Tom Cochrane song here).
I worked a lot with Katie Chan when she was 8-12 years old, and I remember asking her if she would like to play for Team Canada one day. She was so strong and quick. Her dad used to send me videos of all these crazy goals she was scoring... against the boys (very rare). I was certain that she would wear a gold medal one day. But she didn't make it to the Olympics. She came into Slapshot Alley a couple of years ago and told me she got a job with the Seattle Kraken, but her dreams for playing for Team Canada were over. She's coaching and she's awesome but I thought for sure she would be talented enough to be in the PWHL, so I now know just how hard it is to make it. You have to be extremely talented, committed and your work ethic has to be off the charts. It's easy to work hard for one or two years, but I think to be mentally tough and keep up the hard work for decades is the hardest part.
Anyways on the ice this morning, one of the girls was missing so I joined the drills... a little bit. OK I'm almost 50 years old so I'm pretty happy that I still keep up a little bit with these kids. Anyways, one of the more memorable moments is when we did a Quinn Hughes walking-the-line drill with a deflection. They didn't really understand what the drill was supposed to look like, so I had to get in there. I hope they read this and I'll show them this video so they get a better understanding of what the shot should look like.
Last Night
Yesterday, Willy came into Slapshot Alley for my first lesson of the night. About a year ago, Willy came into the Alley and told me he didn't want to learn anything but the Slapshot. I remember asking him, "well what about the wrist shot?" And he said he didn't want to learn wrist shots. I looked at his dad, and his dad was on board with him. My recommendation to Willy was to learn wrist shots first. He was young and weak, so wrist shots would be the primary shot to select in game situations. But this kid was determined to only take Slapshots for some reason.
You know what? I let him do it. Hockey should be fun. Who cares if the kid is wrong? I'll let him be wrong. He was passionate and determined, and I liked it... so I said, "ok kid, I'm gonna teach you how to take slapshots."
So it's been about a year, and the kid has a killer slapshot. And he is more determined than ever. I told him that if he wants to have a good slapshot, he's gotta build muscle. So I ask him every week, how many exercises did you do this week.
Here are his totals for the last week:
300 Push-ups
100 Sit-ups
10 wrist-rollers
200 lunges
200 dips
These totals are great! I am very proud of him. He is very motivated and I hope he keeps it up because it definitely shows. His energy is explosive compared to most kids his age. Maybe if other kids are reading this, they will follow his lead.
I try to ask kids to start doing push-ups but most of them are too lazy to keep up with anything that requires persistence. I never nag. It's up to them if they want to do it.
I'm not going to give up on motivating kids to do this hard work. I think some kind of Slapshot Alley notebook or app where we keep track of everyone's totals might be the ticket to get everyone on par.
Later skater
Coach Andre
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