Skating: the skill every other skill sits on.

Hockey Canada's Coach 1 manual (Version 1.1, 2022) says a player's passing, shooting, checking and stickhandling all track how well that player skates. It organises skating into a sequence: the basic stance, the edges, forward starts, forward skating, stopping, forward turns, backward skating and backward turns. The sections below follow that order, with the IIHF's Learn to Play (LTP) Level C practice manual alongside where it covers the same ground.

The ready stance

The Coach 1 manual calls the basic stance a ready position from which a player can move in any direction. It is the position for faceoffs, for waiting in front of the net, and the base for passing, shooting and checking. Its key points:

• Feet roughly shoulder width apart.
• Knees and ankles flexed to about 45 degrees, and the upper body tipped forward by about the same.
• Weight on the balls of the feet, head up.
• Both hands on the stick, with the blade flat on the ice.

The manual's quick check is that the shoulders, knees and toes should sit on one straight line. The IIHF LTP Level C manual describes a very similar stance: skates parallel and shoulder width apart, toes straight ahead, knees bent until they line up with the toes, a slight forward lean, head up and two hands on the stick near the ice.

Hockey Canada's manual is not consistent on foot angle. Its key-points list says the feet point slightly outward, but the manual's own "proper stance" checklist a page later says toes straight ahead with the skates parallel, which matches the IIHF manual.

For getting up after a fall, Coach 1 teaches coming up onto the knees with both hands kept on the stick rather than on the ice, then placing one skate blade forward on the ice and then the other.

Edges and balance

Every blade has an inside and an outside edge. Hockey Canada's manual says the inside edge does most of the pushing, while the outside edge is mainly for turning and stopping, though it can add some drive. The manual's rule of thumb is that weak skaters control two of the four edges, average skaters three, and that every player should work toward all four.

Both federations state the same balance principle: since skating is mostly done on one foot, one foot must always be under the body's centre of gravity. When gliding on one foot, the supporting blade should be flat on the ice rather than tipped onto an edge. Hockey Canada and the IIHF also list the same common gliding errors: ankles caving in or out, knees pressing together, straight legs, a twisted body, leaning too far forward, looking down, and not keeping two hands on the stick.

Starts

Coach 1 names three forward starts and says the situation decides which to use:

T start

For a stationary player who already knows which way to go, such as at some faceoffs. The manual says it is easier for beginners than the front start.

Front start

Heels turned in to make a V, weight on the front of the blades and skates kept low so they recover quickly. The blade angle approaches 35 to 40 degrees by the third or fourth stride, with full stride reached after about six.

Crossover start

A front start with one crossover first, used after a two-foot stop or when the player is side-on to the new direction. The crossing skate lands as close to 90 degrees to the new direction as possible.

Across all three, the manual's points are to shift the centre of gravity forward onto the inside edge of the driving skate, turn the drive leg out about 90 degrees from the intended path, make the first three or four strides short and quick with no glide, and extend hip, knee and ankle forcefully. Strides then lengthen, and the push moves from the back toward the side.

The forward stride

Hockey Canada's manual puts stride power in a full extension of the hip, then the knee, then the ankle, driven out to the side rather than straight back. The gliding knee is well bent, reaching past the toe of the skate, and body weight shifts over the striding leg at the start of each push. The recovering skate comes back on a circular path, low and passing under the centre of gravity, while the shoulders stay square to the direction of travel and the upper body stays relaxed.

The IIHF LTP manual describes the same pattern as alternating push and glide, with the driving toe turned out 35 to 40 degrees, the whole leg used from hip to toe, the last of the push coming off the toe, and recovery close to the ice. Coach 1 adds that speed is built with fast, short strides and can then be held with longer, less frequent ones, and it uses a scooting or T-push drill to build leg extension.

Stopping

Coach 1 says the stop should be one of the first skills taught, for safety, and recommends using painted lines rather than the boards as stopping points. It lists the one o'clock or eleven o'clock stop, the front-foot stop and the two-foot stop. Its general points: rotate the hips to turn the skates 90 degrees to the direction of travel without rising up first, bend the knees past the toes, stagger the skates about 6 to 8 inches apart, spread the weight over both skates and press on the front of the blades while extending the legs.

In the two-foot stop, the outside skate works on its inside edge and the inside skate on its outside edge, with the shoulders turning first and the hips and legs following. The manual suggests learning it to the stronger side first. Going backward, it teaches a V-stop in which the toes turn out and the heels in so the inside edges bite, finishing in the ready stance.

Turns and crossovers

Hockey Canada's manual points out that turning uses less energy than stopping and starting again, and that players need to turn equally well both ways. Its forward-turn skills are the glide turn, tight turn, sharp turn, forward crossover turn, crossover pumping and reversing direction.

• Tight turn: inside skate ahead of the other, heel to toe; head and shoulders turn into the curve; lean from the hips inside the half circle, loading the outside edge of the front foot and the inside edge of the back foot. The manual warns against sitting back.
• Sharp turn: a 180-degree change of direction at speed, which the manual calls one of the hardest skating skills. It suggests teaching it around a low marker such as a glove or a faceoff dot, because tall cones stop players leaning.
• Crossovers: lean into the circle, push with the outside leg on its inside edge, then push with the inside leg on its outside edge as the outside leg crosses over, bending the knees as far as possible before each drive. On circles, the manual asks for the blade to stay on the ice through full extension and for equal force on both pushes.

Backward skating and pivots

Coach 1 compares the backward stance to sitting in a chair: knees bent, back straight, feet and knees shoulder width apart, seat low, head up, chest out and weight along the whole blade. In the backward stride, one leg pushes from the front of the blade out to the side until straight, then the free foot comes back in low beside the skating foot before the other leg pushes. The backward C-cut turns the heel of the driving skate out so the blade carves a half circle, with the supporting leg kept under the body.

The manual teaches pivots both ways, from backward to forward and forward to backward, started by turning a shoulder back with the torso and hips following, and it stresses accelerating out of the pivot. Backward lateral crossovers let a defender move sideways while staying in front of an attacker, with the hips turned slightly but the head facing the play.

How Hockey Canada sequences skating

Hockey Canada's 2020-21 skating development guide names eight skating skills: agility and balance, edge control and coordination, forward skating, backward skating, turning, crossovers, transitions and quick feet. Its main points for coaches:

• Skating keeps being taught at every age: introduced around U7 and U9, developed from U11 to U15 and refined from U18 up.
• Agility, balance and coordination in every skating practice at 12 and under; quickness and acceleration at 13 and over.
• Teach the skating first, then add the puck, then add other players.
• Do not break skills into overly fine movements, and accept that players will not all skate alike.
• Use small-area games in a reduced space with many puck touches. The guide credits Barry Trotz, then named as a Canadian national team coach, with the view that a player who cannot skate in a small space cannot play at higher levels.

The guide also suggests a rough split for skating work: about 75 percent technique and 25 percent skating tactics for beginners, half and half for developing players, and 35 percent technique, 35 percent tactics and 30 percent quickness and acceleration for high-performance players.

What the biomechanics research found

Two studies compared stronger and weaker skaters directly:

• Upjohn, Turcotte, Pearsall and Loh (2008, Sports Biomechanics) filmed players on a skating treadmill. High- and low-calibre players used similar movement patterns and stride rates, but the better players had more joint range and speed of motion, longer strides and more sideways movement in the push.
• Buckeridge and colleagues (2015, PLoS One) measured nine varsity and nine recreational players over 30 m sprints on real ice. The varsity group was about 12 percent faster overall and about 15 percent faster in the acceleration phase. As speed rose, the work moved from hip extension (in acceleration) toward hip abduction, the sideways push (at steady speed). The paper cites earlier work finding that the start turns into a gliding technique by about the third stride, which fits Hockey Canada's short, running-style first strides.

The same 2015 paper also cites studies finding that synthetic ice and skating treadmills do not reproduce real-ice skating exactly: synthetic ice produced more knee extension, and treadmill skating differed in stride rate, stride length and physiological load.

Skate fit and blade care are covered on the skates and skate sharpening pages.