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So who taught you how to skate...

Re: So who taught you how to skate...

Kepler said:
TBD. I've been doing something not even closely resembling skating on and off for 40+ years, but at some point before my bones turn to powder I'd love to actually have lessons. Crossovers can't be that hard, right?:p
Click to expand...

put
one
foot
in front
of
the other

and soon you'll be skating 'cross the flooo-ooooor-rrrr.:D

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Re: So who taught you how to skate...

I skated once or twice every year since high school, and then this past winter I made skating part of my workout / gym route, skating at "Jackson's Landing" in Durham -- the public rink, built from the old boards at Snively. I also skated a few times at the JFK in Manchester.

I went from being comically awkward to being able to cross over, forward and backwards, through the course of the winter. Most of what I learned was from trial and error, and quite a few bruises on my ***. I asked the more experienced skaters for tips, and about mid-winter two friends of mine (who play goalie and forward in a local league) started skating with me, and really working with me. Skating went from a leisure activity to a workout, where I'd leave sweating bullets 3 days a week.

At the end of Spring Break in March, I took the next step, and bought a cup and helmet, and went to 'open stick and puck' (the stick, a gift from the two friends). Stick and Puck ended, and the pick-up game began, short one player. Kaija and Ben loaned me extra gear, and 4 assists and a goal later, my first organized (term used loosely) hockey game was over, and though I could barely walk the next day, I was hooked :D

Fortunately, there are a couple arenas open during the summer, so this summer is about building up endurance (I was dead after an hour and a half of skating) and honing the backwards skating ability . . . can't wait for Landing to open in November!
 
Re: So who taught you how to skate...

brianvf said:
I was taught when I was 3 or 4 years old by my uncle. He was a forward for the Sioux back in the 70's, so he could get us into the old REA every now and then to skate with some other former players and their families. He never actually played in the old REA though...his playing days were in the Winter Sports Garden (The Barn).
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I thought I could skate until as a Freshman I took the UND ice skating class at the old REA. Some guys wanted me on their IM hockey team but said I needed to learn to skate first. I was kind of insulted but enrolled anyway.

The class was taught by one of the assistant coaches of the Sioux hockey team, he went on to coach in the NHL. Class progressed from basic starting/stopping thru forward/backward crossovers to more advance techniques. By end of class he had us doing figure eights on one foot while facing one direction, with no hockey sticks to lean on for balance. Well spent tuition money. :)

Also while skating on Sioux ice I made some interesting observations about WCHA hockey. As the season progressed the amount of blood on the ice varied. Games against Wisconsin seemed to have the most blood.:eek:
 
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Re: So who taught you how to skate...

My Mother, who never did any other athletic thing in her life, went way out of the way to get me and my 3 siblings on outside ice in Maryland when I was young. Looking back at it, it really must of been a lot of work to find 4 sets of skates, and safe ice. But she was from Minnesota, and us kids needed to learn to skate.
 
Re: So who taught you how to skate...

Kepler said:
TBD. I've been doing something not even closely resembling skating on and off for 40+ years, but at some point before my bones turn to powder I'd love to actually have lessons. Crossovers can't be that hard, right?:p
Click to expand...
They arent THAT hard, you just have to learn to be fearless (not afraid to fall and look stupid) and practice, practice, practice.
I found that once I accepted the fact that Im going to fall sometimes (even the best skaters in the world fall sometimes) and put the fear of falling and embarassing myself out of my mind, skating became much easier. Honestly though, if you go to public skate, most people are pretty terrible skaters anyways, so its not like anyone is going to laugh at you or make fun of you.
 
Re: So who taught you how to skate...

I roller skated infrequently as a kid until I won a pair of rollerblades at a New Years party at my friends rink. I rollerbladed often (took to it VERY quickly) after that and I remember watching NHL hockey on tv and thinking that it couldn't be too hard but never tried ice skating. Fast forward 10 years with progressively less roller skating every year and out of sheer happenstance I went to St. Cloud for college (meteorology), went to my first college game vs. UND and have been hooked on the game since. Still wanted to try skating but just had that something inside that kept me from the rink to try.

In the spring of my last year of college I purchased some skates (and a stick) on ebay to give myself that push to give it a shot. Much to my dismay they closed the rink down for the summer shortly after I got my skates so I never got my shot there. Graduation came and went and I moved down to West Metro MPLS for work and found a rink to hit up an open skate. Brought my girlfriend on my first visit (she couldn't skate well, so I figured I wouldn't be alone), laced them up, stepped out on the ice and started skating like I had been doing it for years. Forwards, backwards and even light stopping. Needless to say my girlfriend called me an athletic freak of nature because of that. Started going to an open skate once or twice a week, shoveled my first pond for the outdoor experience that whole winter and used what I saw on tv and at SCSU games as my lessons. Monkey see, monkey do, per se.

This past summer my office moved just down the road from Braemar Arena (which conveniently had year passes and open skates over my lunch hour!) so I spent my second winter skating every other day trying to do what I saw and developed some simple drills for myself until I could skate forwards, backwards, cross over, hockey stop to the left and right, quick start etc until it became almost a second nature. Later on, I ended up meeting a guy who played 4 years at Wisconsin, 6 in the pros (mainly NHL farm system and in Europe) who has been helping me refine the process. I then volunteered for the MN special "Stingers" hockey team to gain a different aspect on the game because now I am helping others to learn the game.

2 seasons in and I am currently doing the search to complete my set of gear so that I can start in the JMS (Just My Speed) Pickup Hockey Program. I can generally keep up with my buddy (who played through high school and is a level 3, potentially 4, in the program). He thinks I can get into the 2nd level of the program right off the bat, which is pretty exciting. I still have a bunch to learn but with skating generally out of the way I can now focus my efforts on positioning and strategy.
 
Re: So who taught you how to skate...

My father took me to the MacKay ice rink in Englewood, NJ when I was somewhere around 3 yrs old. I had a pair of the double runners and got pulled around until I started taking steps and eventually skating. The place has been there forever; it's got a roof over it but the walls are just chain-link fences with tarps over them to try and keep the wind out. I played some house league there and then moved on to a travel team, then I continued playing in middle and high school. I've done some intramurals at NU and now I currently ref there.
 
Re: So who taught you how to skate...

My uncle taught me when I was about 2 1/2 or 3 at a rink in Montclair, NJ down the street from my house. The day before my 3rd birthday I tried to climb the steps in my skates and wound up with stitches (clearly he was a responsible uncle...)! When I was a kid I figure skated until I was about 9, then lost interest (because, frankly, it's boring and girly and I was always something of a tomboy).

I picked skating up again in college (Barb Pinch taught the first two years I did it, and I agree, she was awesome!), and took the hockey classes senior year - mostly the beginner one, but sometimes I would go to the scrimmage class, too. Between that and local clinics/pick-ups, and a women's team out at Hockeytown, senior year I was playing hockey 7 days a week, which I really miss!
 
Re: So who taught you how to skate...

My dad taught me when I was about 3 at an outdoor rink in South St Paul he had played in high school back in the day and it was the thing to do there. Also I remember going to the Art Miller/Doug Woog hockey school but have no clue how old I was maybe like 7 or 8 at the time.


I remember playing some youth games at the old Mariucci arena and we would pretend to be the Gopher players it was pretty awesome for a young kid. I was hooked on College Hockey after that.
 
Re: So who taught you how to skate...

My dad taught me how to skate when I was 5 on an outdoor rink a block from my house. On winter days I went home from school, grabbed something to eat and went to the rink and skated for 2 hours until they closed the rink for dinner between 6 and 7, then went back after dinner for 2 more hours. The "warming house" was a shack with a 55-gallon barrel converted to a wood-burning stove. I started playing hockey right away and played through high school and then intramural at UND.
 
Re: So who taught you how to skate...

thebrain said:
My parents and Jeff Whistler.
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So did you go to Hill-Murray?

My family moved into a house with an extra lot as a side yard that had already been used as a rink, and inherited all the equipment to flood it. It was the neighbor hood backyard rink, before backyard rinks became popular. Lights for night play too. We had a heated garage so put carpet down in there, with chairs, and iced down a path to the rink so it served as our warming house. Dad had a skate sharpener and build a stick rack next to the back door. So started pushing a chair at five and have been skating ever since.
 
Re: So who taught you how to skate...

When I was 35 years old (yes, that's thirty-five), I joined the National Novice Hockey Association when it arrived in the Boston area. That was in 1984. The NNHA was a no-check league that was organized out of Washington DC for those of us who wanted to play the game but were either unable to skate or very close to that. The 1st year of the program consisted of a 16 week program - 8 weeks of skating instruction and then 8 games. After that 1st season I played upwards of 24 games per year. I played in the NNHA until 1992 when I moved on to the New England Regional Hockey League, playing for a total of 15 seasons. My years in both the NNHA and the NERHL helped me to skate well enough to become a UHAHockey official in 1994. I'm now 61 years old and I've been officiating USAHockey games for 16 seasons, officiating mostly Mite thru Pee Wee.
 
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