Such An Important Detail for Hockey Forwards | Stick On Puck 🏒

[4-5 Mins Read] This read is intended for players who strive to play AAA, junior and college one day.

In the midst of creating my first hockey IQ course and watching Canada take on Czechia in the quarterfinals of the tournament… (People need to study how Czechia played that game).

I came across this amazing video that could help forwards (and offensive minded players) who are entering the early stages of hitting and/or junior hockey to create more offense.

And regardless of your age, the principles of this skill could be the difference of you having 2-3 extra chances a game versus none at all.

For context, I learned this skill in my 3rd year of junior playing for the Oakville Blades (OJHL).

At the time we had associations with the LA Kings development program through our head coach, Jamie Storr, who was a goaltender for the LA Kings back in the 90’s.

And one of our early "skill days" we had as a forward group was learning this concept called "Tics & Pokes".

At first, you’d think, with the forward group that we had, this had to have been a joke.

To be frank, this skill work isn’t exactly glamorous, perhaps why it’s overlooked.

But so you have an understanding of how skilled our forward group was at the time…

Here’s a couple names and where they’re at now since our time playing tier 2 junior A together.

Jack Ricketts – ECHL Utah Grizzlies (Holy Cross/Quinnipiac D1)

Ryan O’Hara – ECHL Greenville Swamprabbits (Bowling Green D1)

Harrison Israels – ECHL Indy Fuel (Alaska/Omaha D1)

Luke Tchor – Leads Hamilton College in pts (D3)

Jacob King – University of Toronto (USports)

Cam Garvey – “C” at Robert Morris University (D1)

Alton McDermott – “A” Canicius College (D1)

With no doubt, this group was the most offensively talented group I'd ever play with.

And still, with the trajectory we were all on (and where you see us now).

Here we were, mastering the basics (when we really didn’t need to).

Lesson #1) Always be a student of the game.

Nonetheless, we learned this new concept “Tics & Pokes” which is commonly known as defending “stick on puck”.

The goal was to keep us in the habit of keeping our sticks on the ice while finishing our checks.

Something you’d think is second-nature.

Keeping your stick on ice while hitting can’t be that hard?

So Lesson #2) Watch back your game film… and check again.

Most players don’t even realize but they forget to keep their sticks on the ice.

And after watching all our game film, we noticed all of us doing the so-called “fly by’s” or trying to hit players with our sticks in the air.

The challenge here is that if and when either of these two situations happen, we don’t put ourselves in position to play any defence.

And when coaches encourage "finish your check" it puts players in a frame of mind to make contact, with absolutely no intention to why they’re hitting.

So why am I making a point of this?

Because when you don’t make contact with the puck when approaching a player who has the puck,

the player with the puck still can MAKE A PLAY regardless of whether you fly by or put them through the boards.

Reminder… What's the old coaching adage of making body contact?

Isn’t it to separate the player from the puck?

Reminder… THE PUCK.

Puck isn’t separated from the man if you allow them to make a play.

And the only way to do so is by keeping that stick on the ice.

So… the “Tic & Poke” defensive model allows your team to;