Coach JeremyEveryone loves scoring goals, but in order to do that, you need to have the puck on your stick. A lot of younger players have a tough time receiving a pass unless it’s perfectly placed on their tape, and we know that not a lot of younger players can make that pass. Today, I’m going to show you a simple tip to work on your skill of receiving passes, whether they are in your feet, or nearly out of your reach.
Why You Might Be Missing Passes
The way you grip your stick is incredibly important. We all know that’s the case for stick handling, and we’ve all made adjustments; however, it’s actually very important when you’re receiving passes as well. The grip that you have when you catch a pass in the perfect spot is great for that kind of pass, because it means the blade of your stick is flat on the ice. However, if you try to move your stick (while keeping that grip) far away, or close to you, you’ll notice the blade isn’t flat on the ice anymore. It’s going to be a lot harder to catch a pass like that.
Check out these two different grips I have when I’m catching a puck near my feet.
You can clearly see in the first picture that there is hardly any blade for the puck to hit on, meaning my chances of receiving that pass are a lot lower. When you widen your grip, and lower your stance a little, you can see that the blade is flat on the ice. That means there is a lot more of my stick for the puck to hit, and once it does, I’ll have a lot more control.
Another technique you can use is to actually roll your top hand forward. By doing that, the blade of the stick is (again) flush with the ice, meaning there is more area for the puck to rest in. Check out the video to see the demonstration.
Drills
There actually is some drills that you can do to put some work in on pass reception. It’s incredibly simple, actually, all you do is pass the puck (or ball) off an object that will bounce it back to you. If you have a teammate, a friend, or a parent who can pass you pucks, this works even better. All you want to do is practice having passes far out from your strong side, and into your feet, all while using these new techniques in order to receive those passes a lot crisper, and smoother.
The likelihood of you getting tape to tape passes all game, every game, is incredibly low; use these techniques to receive tough passes better and to continue the flow of offensive momentum in your game.
If you need more help with your passes I have a few more videos that should help
