Skating: Find Your Skate Blade's Sweet Spot
Better skating by finding your ideal weight distribution
Bryan Burns, the Manager of Communications for the Tampa Bay Lightning, wrote a great piece on Barb Underhill’s work with Brayden Point’s skating. At the time of the 2014 NHL Draft, Point was undersized and was seen as an average skater. That’s why he slipped to the third round of the draft that year. Since then, his skating has improved dramatically, and he’s an elite skater in the NHL. He came within a tenth of a second of beating McDavid in the fastest skater competition.
Rebuilding Brayden Point’s Skating
"He had all the attributes. He had the hockey sense, the competitiveness, he had all the hockey player traits you need, except shockingly enough, he didn't have the speed he has now. All he did was improve his skating. He's gone from an OK, decent skater to an exceptional skater." - Jon Cooper, Head Coach
Underhill, the skating guru for both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning, is credited with “fixing” Point’s skating stride from a borderline liability to an asset.
Before
"He would come out of his turns on his heels. His crossovers were on his heels, so his acceleration wasn't there." - Underhill
After
"So we made several adjustments to get him -- and some of them were mobility issues, some of them were skate issues -- to get him to the right part of the blade. And with him, as soon as he got there, he just took off. It just all clicked. Jamie Heffernan and the off-ice team were an important part of the process."
Stacking Your Weight
Fixing your skating with Barb & Brayden.
"I'm always looking for the blade" - Underhill
When looking at Point, Underhill was able to find that he was on his heels when skating:
"In every sport there's a sweet spot, and the blade has a sweet spot. And so when you hit it, there's no tension on your body because you're completely supported. When you are not on the right part of your blade or if your blade is not quite under you, then there is friction and so there's going to be tension in your body.
So I look to find that perfect balance point for a player where the skating becomes effortless, it becomes easy, it becomes more efficient, where they're able to accelerate faster because their body's lined up over the right part of the blade."
Learning from this… get off your heels and toes!! Find the sweet spot for yourself. Is it near the ball of your foot? Near the middle of the blade? It depends on your size profile, weight distribution, etc. so tinker and find what works best for you.
Scouting
Poor skating is/was seen in the talent evaluation community as something that a player cannot overcome. Yet, there are many players that have shown that skating is a poor reason to blacklist a draft-eligible player.
"I used to be one of those people that thought if the guy couldn't skate and had an issue with skating, it was going to be a problem that was maybe not able to overcome. But Barb Underhill has made a believer of me," - Al Murray, TB’s AGM and director of amateur scouting
"And oftentimes if we're worried about a player's skating, we'll send clips of it to Barb or Barb will get on the internet and watch the player and she'll tell us. Certain things can be fixed, certain other things are going to be a real problem to fix."
Looking closer, maybe a player just needs to find their sweet spot.
Further Reading