HOME Hockey Answers Hockey COACHING Q&A

How to improve personal defense ability?

Hockey CoachCoach

1 answer

ANSWERS

Jaime BracewellAdministrator, United States of America

Hi there!

There are a few main principles of defending in hockey - Intercepting, Channelling, Zoning. You will need to work on all 4 of these to improve your defence ability.

Intercepting - this involves a lot of timing and change of pace. You will need to time your run perfectly so that you step in front on the player just before they receive the ball. You should be travelling at a quick pace to ensure you intercept the ball. An easy drill for this is to have 4 players, the defending player stands behind the attacker and times their move to get in front of the attacker as the ball is passed.

After making the interception they dribble and pass to the wide player who then passes the ball back to the feeder.

Channelling - he defending player looks to channel the ball carrier in order to make them either push the ball off the pitch; create a tackling opportunity ;or to provide another teammate with an opportunity to make a tackle.

When channelling it is a great change to execute a jab tackle. This should be performed when the ball is away from the attackers stick to avoid stick contact.

Zoning - working as a unit to force the opposition into the stick of a defender.

Hope this helps!