As a hockey player I like to see new players out there on the ice having a blast. Have you ever had the opportunity to play organized hockey or even skate? Did you know the NHL has more than tripled in less than 100 years? The NHL is the elite level hockey for players across the world. There’s also many techniques and strategies for your and your team to improve there game.
As mentioned before the NHL is a league for the best of the best players. Hockey is the second most watched sport across the world right behind soccer. Theres many other minor hockey leagues that professional scouts bring players up for their shot in the big time. These leagues include the OHL, CHL, AHL and there are even junior teams that are from Europe! The major league is filled with 30 teams located from Boston to Los Angeles, and from Phoenix to Vancouver. When it originated it comprised of 6 teams that in less than 100 years, grew to the current 30 teams. These teams are filled with the best players in the world. Stars like Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane, Alexander Ovechkin and Pavel Datsyuk are some examples. These players have all had at least 7, 20+ goal seasons for their team! Now that’s a star! The league allows kids as young as 18 to play in the big league to prove themselves. All of the best players are sponsored by big name brands like Bauer and Reebok. This means these players are almost like the brand’s test dummies, and of course get paid for it. They try out gear and use it in games and give feedback to the brands to improve their product to keep the customers happy.


Techniques are also very important to hockey. Various techniques are very important to young and/or new players. These include keeping your knees bent and keeping both hand on your stick. These might be two of the most important techniques for new players to learn. Learning these as young as possible can make the world of a difference for when you jump into the sport and play games. Keeping the knees bent can help you keep your balance, while keeping two hands on the stick helps you receive passes and shoot. Every player should learn how to stickhandle while not looking at the puck. This helps the player with possession of the puck fake out the defender and and it helps you expect to be checked and it won’t hurt nearly as bad as when you don’t expect it. Players around the world have learned the words, “Heads up, don’t duck” this reinforces that if you’re sliding into the boards head first you lift up your head and you create less opportunity to break your neck. If you fail to do this in time, you pose the threat of breaking your neck and becoming paralyzed. Every year in high school hockey at least 2 people die, 4 people are left with permanent injury, and 5 kids are left with serious injury.


In order for you and your teammates to be successful, you have to learn at least some of the different strategies. All these strategies include things such as making different plays, different breakouts, cycling the puck in one of the corners and even different drills to get better. Practicing different plays and putting them in use during games can help you confuse and draw the opposing players to the man with the puck. But in order to put the plays to use you have to get the puck out the defensive zone. This is called a breakout. You can do this in various ways, like having the winger stay on the boards and collect a pass from the defensemen behind the net, or have the players “weave” by crossing the ice and the forwards change their position. When you breakout and use the plays to get into offensive zone, you want to get the puck deep and wait for the perfect opportunity to strike. You can do this by cycling the puck down in one of the corners of the zone. Cycling is when the 3 forwards are creating a circle and the player on the boards with the puck, sends it down towards the corner while skating the opposite way. The next player comes down grabs the puck and repeats the process. This then goes on and on until the player with the puck can either pass it out front or take the puck to the net if you have a lane.

Others may claim that while playing hockey is still fun it poses a threat to injury and possibly death or paralysis. According to momsteam.com hockey is the second leading sport for paralysis and injury behind football. This might lead parents to the decision of children not playing the sport. It does pose a threat to injury but it is not very likely for an injury as serious as that to occur, especially at such a young age. Since there is a only a small threat of serious injury, it is still a fun and fast paced game. It is a very demanding and physical sport. But in the end it brings kids together and make them work together.

In conclusion hockey is a very fun sport that forces kids to work on teamwork and skills such as those. It’s a sport with some of the best athletes in the world, there’s lots of techniques and strategies involved. Hockey is a great form of exercise too.