Ice Hockey Drills Animations, Diagrams, Downloads, and Community

Here is a good warm up drill if you only have 1 goalie.  It is similar to the origial three lane shooting drill but adapted to shoot on one net.  Set up the players along the boards at the blue line.  The coach or another player  has all the pucks just inside the other blue line.

This is a good drill for "power play" practices.  The player in the corner passes to the defensemen at the point, who passes to his defensive partner in the middle of the ice.  The most important part of this drill is the shot coming from the point. First of all it needs to hit the net, and secondly it has to be low and give the forwards a chance to tip.  Forwards need to be prepared for a rebound as well.  A good variation is to add  defensemen down low.

This ice hockey drill is great for defensemen to work on their shots, passing, and pivoting. Each player will get three shots. To start, the defensemen receives a puck from the corner and gains the center of the ice as quickly as possible and shoots from the top of the slot. The player continues around the cones always facing the net. This forces them to pivot and receive the next pass going backwards. When they receive the next pass the player repeats as in the first rep.

The diagram for this drill is a little messy, but the animation should make it straight forward.  The player doing the figure eights should always face the net so they are pivoting around the cones.  As they receive the pass they should control it and give a pass to the other passer as quick as possible.  The other point of emphasis is the footwork, the player should try to keep their feet moving at all times.

The focus of players in this drill should be keeping the feet moving especially when coming out of the figure eight, explode into the center ice and keep the feet moving as the shot is taken.

The Shoot & Go starts is a fun way to end a practice. Starting from the high slot, two players make as many passes as possible before the hash marks. The player with the puck at the hash marks has to shoot.  Both players then race around the cones to a puck that the coach sets out around center ice. The player that wins the race earns the right for a break away scoring chance.

This is a quick drill that requires quick, hard passes.  It is a great opportunity for forwards to work on their one-time shot, the defense to work on accurate passes, and the goalies to work on their lateral movement.  In the diagram below, F2 begins the drill with a hard accurate pass to D2.  D2 fires a hard pass to to F1 coming out of the corner.  F1 needs to time their break to the net so they receive the pass from D2 just outside the far post.

This variation involves a couple more passes and two shots, one from the forward, and one from the defense.  F1 starts the drill with a pass to D1.  D1 walks the puck to the middle of the ice and makes a hard pass to F2 coming out of the corner.  F2 needs to time their break to the middle so they are not waiting for the pass.

This is a very fun game for all skill levels.  Split up into two teams.  In this diagram, there is a green team and an orange team.  There are four lines as shown with equal players in each line.  Pucks should be given to each line and then a group of pucks should also be placed in between the hash marks in each zone.  On the whistle, P1 on each team receives a pass from P2 (diagonal pass).  When P1 receives it they go in for a breakaway on the opposite goalie.  If

This is a great drill for players to work on developing a feel for the puck.  Set up two cones in the high slot as shown in the diagram.  F1 skates in a figure eight using tight control turns.  After they have completed one figure eight, the passes leaves the puck int he high slot for F1 to take a shot.

This drill is great for goalies and fun for forwards. It requires goalies to start facing the coach who is located in the slot. The coach can pass to either player coming out of the corner. The players have to stay within a stick's length of the goal line. Typically there will be one pass with a one time shot, but if players catch the goalie cheating can try to shoot short side, or sometimes players can make 2 passes to really challenge the goalie. Make sure the goalie has time to set up between reps and limit the reps to an amount where the goalie stays fresh.