Stops, starts, transitions and footwork

Footwork fundamentals

Purpose: Practicing skating fundamentals, including pivots, backwards skating and crossovers.

Players line up in the corner (with our without pucks)
One at a time they skate forwards diagonally towards the opposite blueline
Halfway across the ice, players pivot and begin skating backwards towards the blueline, where they stop
Players do lateral crossovers half way across the blueline and then skate forwards to the far boards, where they stop
Players continue skating backwards to the centre faceoff dot, where they pivot to a forward position
They stop at the blueline and skate hard to the opposite corner
An alternate option is adding pucks and a shot at the end of the drill (shown here)
Ensure players face the same direction on all pivots and for all crossovers
Run the drill from opposite ends to work on transitions from both sides.