One of the greatest things about hockey is that when you play you have the freedom to express yourself and use your own skillset to make things happen the way you want them to. Each person will have their own personal style when it comes to maneuvering across the rink or getting from here to there without losing the puck. The hockey deke is no exception to the concept of style. In fact, the more original your move, the better the odds are that you actually pull it off and score. Deking is not easy, so in order to be effective, you have to train. You have to get good, and you have to maintain your skills by practicing regularly. If you want to deke like the pros, here are a few tips for you to get started.

Strengthen Your Core

To be great on the ice you have to have the core strength of an athlete. It is not easy to glide around on the ice and keep the puck in your possession long enough to take a deke shot. Daily ice skating practice is one way to stay in shape, but what helps to build the core, even more, is to use a hockey balance board. If you spend just 15 minutes a day training on a balance board you can blast your core way beyond what it takes to pull sick dekes. As soon as you get on the board you can feel your core engage and your muscles start to burn. This is the kind of stuff that makes champions out of people.

Sharpen Your Shooting Skills

In order to pull off the ultimate deke move, you have to be fast on your feet and have good aim. It is not by chance that hockey players sneak in hot shots that score points and leave the goalies standing there all wide-eyed and jaw dropped. All it takes is the right aim and a split second of heat to fire a shot right past the goaltender. The way to get good at your shooting skills is to practice every day and keep practicing even when you don’t feel like you need to.

This is what you do…

Get yourself a hockey shooting tarp and make good use of it. When you use a shooting tarp you can protect people and valuables from flying pucks. This is important when it comes to the kind of training it takes to be a great sniper.

Start by putting a good stockpile on your flooring close enough to you so that you can easily drag them to you one at a time. When you are ready, pick the target hole on the shooting tarp that you have the hardest time hitting and shoot for it over and over again until you run out of pucks. Take note of how many shots you make compared to how many you missed.

Sharpen Your Stickhandling Skills

For the ultimate deke moves, you need to be agile and ready to move towards whatever direction that comes open for you at the moment. This means that you need to be able to handle your stick without dropping it or skipping a beat. As easy as this may sound if you have played enough hockey you know that it is not always peaches and cream when it comes to controlling the puck and keeping yourself balanced. Take the extra time that it needs each day to become better with your stickhandling skills.

Conclusion

When it all comes down to the bottom line, in order to master the deke move you have to become a master of the game of hockey. You need balance, speed, accuracy, and grace all wound up into one ball of talent. The best way to get all of these skills is to keep at it and practice with all of your heart until you become great.

***Sniper’s Edge Hockey loves Canada! We proudly ship all of our products to Canada and offer the same return policies as we do for everybody else. We realize the exchange rates for the Canadian dollar are not the best right now, so we’re trying to help by giving you free shipping and no customs/duty.***