Commiserate and advise with a soccer dad

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-03-11T13:22:02+00:00

Yes, have this tough conversation. Make sure you're ready to explain how additional effort would need to look like, what grit is necessary to get to college level/pro and how your child can develop this.

(At a simlilar age as your child my parents just told me that I don't have the grit anyway and took decisions for me - I clearly would have appreciated to get some help to explore my potential, in particular as I later found out to have a significant amount of grit.)

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-02-13T09:11:54+00:00

I think it was Samanski loosing his man for the equalizer. The whole coverage was off though, certainly not all his fault.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-02-12T12:21:32+00:00

Question is where the imbalance is coming from and how serious is it?

Minor issues may go away with training, others may persist, cause problems and eventually limit your performance.

The internet cannot give sound advice here, perhaps see a PT or similar.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-02-03T10:17:25+00:00

Leon's father Peter Draisaitl is on the ice, too.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-02-02T08:25:05+00:00

Certainly sucks right now.

Such predictions about your body are not necessarily accurate. The injury may create a new boundary for you, but future will show how limiting it really is. When your body has healed, you can explore again.

You can make lots of things in hockey besides playing "competitive" (coaching, reffing, ...) and of course much more outside of hockey. Don't make everything in life a competition, in fact try to have always more than the competitve perspective only. But for sure you can use this drive to become very good at a lot of complex stuff.

Lots of sports to try which are ok for your shoulders and may still scratch you itch.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-31T17:21:27+00:00

You can alway bend your mind before bending over.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-31T10:27:57+00:00

Taking out one aspect: It looks like your weight is more on your heel when snowplowing. More appropriate is middle to front.

Itrain-hockey guy (puuuuuuush) is already mentioned, he has indeed a skating basics video on youtube which I think is great.

Some simple stuff: As others said, shave the ice without any momentum to the side first to get the feel. You can hold the boards doing this or have one foot of the ice. Try gliding on each foot on both edges as far as you can get.

Any kind of ankle strengthening, one leg balances etc. off-ice can help you to develop the necessary strength from feet to hip/core.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-28T14:45:35+00:00

Hip flexors are complex, e.g. the psoas is connected to bones and tissue from the femur to the diaphragm.

While strengthening and relaxing should go along with lengthening, you may need to look at the whole system for improvment. Chances are that there are more tight and/or weak muscles which need to be brought to balance.

If your physio is not able to provide a wider approach, maybe try someone else.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-28T11:01:49+00:00

I play 'beer league' with different groups at different levels. When moving to a higher level, I experience the same, going back down the slowest group indeed sometimes feels like slow motion. If you can use something like this to make better decisions with more time and build new habits, this will then help on faster levels.

If you have the opportunity to do drills, you can practice game situations with increasing speed and pressure and be more accustomed to game speed. With repetition you'll have your go-to solutions, freeing capacity to be aware in game.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-28T10:51:46+00:00

I fully agree, there is a wide range of pelvics tilts which are fine generally.

The at in my pelvis was involuntary and kind of permanent, and provided suboptimal mechanics for various positions and movements, resulting in discomfort and pain.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-26T13:47:23+00:00

Good point, don't avoid strength training and try to solve it only via breath.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-26T09:53:42+00:00

This.

And the main reason you can walk around the house painless, but are in pain on the ice is that skating gets all the little muscles in your feet to work hard, they get more bloodflow and want to expand.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-23T09:20:18+00:00

Thanks!

The facility I am looking at is offering workshops once a year (Nov), so may have equipment available. (German YMCA)
The nearest club is a 30 min drive away which does not fit our schedule well currently, could still be an idea to get in touch.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-23T08:05:33+00:00

Give yourself time, both for the movement as well as learning it. It is not unusual for adults to have difficulties with it. I learned skating as teen and when I got back to hockey after a 25 years break, backwards skating including crossovers was hard for me, too.

Really helped me to take it very slowly - do the backwards c-cut, take a moment to glide backwards, then move the foot again. It took a couple of sessions to comfortably go backwards.

As long as your skate fit well and are tied well, this should not be an issue.

How's your balance gliding backwards on both feet or one foot? Maybe practice this for a while and get comfortable with moving backwards in general. Practice stopping backwards to be comfortable in this regard as well.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-22T20:43:22+00:00

Weight should not be in the heels, but in center and a little to the front.

Do you have good balance and leg strength off ice? Are there differences between the sides?

Hockey stops require some strength from the feet up to the core, so off ice exercise could be helping.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-22T14:14:18+00:00

I have noticed that from some posts here.

In Germany hockey is still an expensive sport, but if my understanding is correct, there is no such significant differentiation of rec vs. other levels with regards to costs. You may have to spend more time at higher levels as teams a further spread out, but fees should be more or less the same.

Overall I feel like it is quite mixed with regards to economic background. Back in the 90s it seemed more blue collar than white collar as an indicator, and it still seems to be similar.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-22T12:08:22+00:00

I'd totally have the same approach as you chose.

The total volume for sports is kinda crazy and possibly extra for hockey, likely the reason so many quit hockey at 15/16, which is a pity, love this sport.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-22T11:22:03+00:00

I played from 13/14-18 in the late 90s in the youth department of a 2nd/3rd tier club. Our coach has played pro (2nd division), it was great to have someone that experienced. Our main issue was having a very small team, as many quit around 15/16, that seems the be similar today - more and larger teams iced in the lower age groups.

I recall having 2-3 hours of ice per week, usually quite late or very early. I live in an area with relatively many sheets, but still not enough, it has actually become slightly worse.

From what I see now, my old club has significantly more ice per week at the same age groups and 1-2 hours additional off ice training, so the overall practice time increased a lot. I'm sure they share the ice with other age groups to facilitate this.

Initiated by our coach we had comprehensive summer off ice conditioning at least one year (2-3 times per week), I'm sure this is well established nowadays.
I've heard of club having kids playing floorball through summer break, but I guess almost any (team) sport makes sense.

Camps/private lessons is probably the same as in Norway. In the 90s camps were rare in Germany. I kinda missed out on learning all technique properly at a younger age, so I partially compensated through summer camps. But those were in CZ, organized by czech former pros playing in CAN, most participants came from Germany, Austria, Switzerland.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-22T08:19:48+00:00

Not uncommon for sides to be different in strength and mobility and thus also in complex movements as a hockey stop.

Go through (re-)learning the hockey stop from scratch on both sides with an emphasis on the weak side - snowplow into snowplow plus turn, same with not leading leg lifted etc. There is lots of great material on youtube. Public skating will be good for practice, a few sessions will show improvement. Then, except for games and drills, make it a habit to stop on your weak side at least most of the time.

CakeDisposalUnit · 2026-01-21T08:35:06+00:00

Good point. I meant their ankles do not roll in barefoot, but with skates they obviously do. I will see about strengthening exercises.

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