New faces and good turnouts for the last several practices. Last Friday was the thinest we have had with 4 on 5. But, it turned out great with lots of drops and good passing. We hope to see everyone on wednesday.
A couple of new swimmers were asking about “the curl”. This is a defensive move to protect the puck. The video shows a inside the lip curl, where the puck is held on the inside of the lip of the stick not the outside. The advantage is the puck is protected by the stick and if the defender has shorter arms it keeps it further out of reach (I have very long arms so this can work well against a shorter defender). The disadvantage is if you have an opponent behind you this makes easier for them to back pick you. The other way to curl is to keep it on the front lip of the stick (and this is the preferred way to do a curl). The advantages to this are you can keep the puck tight to the body and you can flick to a team mate at any point in the curl. Notice the legs are not doing the typical flutter or dolphin kick, I am kicking like I am peddling a bicycle. I am also keeping low to the pool bottom so a defender can’t reach underneath. Always try to swim out of a curl.
Look who got “Ducked” at Lucky’s Lake Swim. A nice place to swim on those days you can’t play underwater hockey.
