The Making of an Elite Skater: How Oliver Moore Slowed Down to Speed Up
A conversation with Oliver Moore’s skating coach, on how he became an elite skater
“We’ve never scouted a faster, more agile skater than Oliver Moore in our time covering the draft in an editorial capacity at Elite Prospects. Full stop.” - Elite Prospect’s 2023 Draft Guide
When it comes to skating, Oliver Moore is already at the level of a Connor McDavid-type skater. Clean feet, engaging edges, and efficient power:
Learning via Slowing Down & Feel-Based Learning
We recently caught up with Katie McDonough, the founder and director of Cutting Edge Performance Power Skating in Minneapolis. Katie has been Moore’s skating coach since he was a squirt/U10. Even in just the fourth grade, Moore’s talent as a skater was obvious, but he had one clear limitation:
“Other coaches could see that there might be something with this kid, but he had a very aggressive hop to his skating, and that was the one thing that was limiting him”
For Moore and McDonough, perfecting the young speedster’s stride meant slowing down to ultimately speed up with a bit more technical know-how.
“How we fixed it? We slowed him down,” she explains over the phone. “Part of it was just learning some things that he didn’t know. They won’t know what that feels like; they won’t know how that translates into their skating; they won’t know how that skating translates into their game.”
Feel Based Learning
To McDonough, there is a risk for a young promising skater to try to go too fast on raw power, which inevitably creates a choppiness because that skater hasn’t attended to underlying factors that will get you to top-end speed. In her words, “If they’re skating at a fast, sloppy, choppy pace, they can’t feel what they’re doing.”
“Fixing and correcting him had a lot to do with giving him some information he didn’t know and then allowing him the opportunity to feel that. And really, that just means we have to slow the players down and make them engage all muscles that they should be engaging while they’re skating. Not let them skate over or through the hard bits, the thing that’s tricky.”
“You can be Dylan Larkin, but before you’re Dylan Larkin, we need you to be good at this, this, and this…That’s how Dylan Larkin started.”
To McDonough, building elite skating starts with slowing down to understand the precise muscle activation necessary to successfully execute a perfect stride.
“With Olly [as McDonough knows him], we provided the explanation, everything we did he started from a standstill, and he in himself had to produce the speed and provide the pressure into the ice,” she explains. “He had to feel what he was doing to be able to continuously gain the speed through it.”
She made sure to touch on how the feel feeds through to everything:
“He’s aggressive in his motions and that’s necessary to be fast,” she continues. “You have to think about it as walking to running. There’s a jog in between there, and when you wanna go faster, you have to get your breathing pattern to catch up with your feet and arms and all of that. You take yourself from one thing to the next thing. If you’re breathing too hard then you slow down. Olly has the foundation there, so when it comes to him needing that speed, it’s there. Everything just clicks. He doesn’t have to think about his skating, because we’ve established such a powerful muscle memory…It’s like walking for him.”
Learning to Quiet/Control His Upper Body
McDonough often sees young skaters whose excessive upper body movement means they are working harder than they should:
“Our upper body has to be controlled and strong and be able to support our legs. If we have too much movement up top, that takes away from what we’re trying to produce and do down below. Core should be engaged while the players are skating, and in my opinion, we don’t communicate that to the players enough and let them know that and let them feel that.”
When asked what aspect of his skating makes Moore such a special talent today, McDonough can’t help but marvel at the complete package she’s helped create:
“I have to say everything…
His recovery is great.
He’s low
He drives down into the ice.
He’s aggressive, and
He’s controlled in his aggression.
That’s one of the aspects that allows him to be so fast… If you watch some of the other skaters on the ice or you watch Olly, you’ll notice that he is more controlled in all areas of his skating.
Whenever he’s doing one thing and completes that, he’s already through the next thing, because he’s led with his upper body or he’s applied pressure into the ice. He’s pretty much good at all of it, and it all shows up in the game.”
Video
Let’s watch some video:
To McDonough’s point about the well-rounded nature of Moore’s exceptional skating, here are three clips:
First, a demonstration of his ridiculous top speed and acceleration, good enough to single-handedly create an offensive chance out of nothing:
Then, a deceptive turn with razor-sharp edges behind the net to send a Michigan defenseman the wrong way and create a quality chance in the slot:
Finally, here’s Moore scoring a power play, but what stands out far more than the goal itself is Moore’s motor to win races in tight spaces and keep the play alive:
Simply and obviously put, Moore is a ridiculously good skater, who excels at all facets of his skating. He had to slow down to get there but before long, he’ll be accelerating through the National Hockey League.
Misc Quotes and Tidbits
Goals and Working Together
“He’s always had goals set in front of him for himself. And then we work off of his goals. I’ve had my own individual goals for him and then he’s had his goals, and then we figure out, how are we going to make them meet.”
Off-ice Training Through The Ages
“Off-ice training is great and should start at mites, but it should start with (air) squats, lunges, planks, and wall sits that they can do on their own wherever safely for a long time before getting into a weight room and using weights.
When you start being paid to play the game, then you can do things a little differently, but that means at that point, now you’re an adult, you have the muscle mass, and you can go into the weight room.
Importance of Stops/Starts
“A lot of skaters want to start any drill with a couple steps in front of whatever we’re working on—whether that be a transition or crossover or stride. They wanna take a few steps or strides in front of that to get them some momentum and motion, and then they wanna start the drill. That’s cheating.”
“I always will tell the players that in a game, they’re constantly starting and stopping, and if we don’t practice and get good at getting quick.”
Further Reading