Who do you think has the best winter skills??

Dynamic. No close second. Your kid may find it not fun, but he will learn to skate.

Also had good experience with Pro Ambitions Sunday morning NHL Prep. Good, solid fundamentals.

what about for bantam level kids? Heard Dynamic HS sessions are good but the peewee/bantam one is more for "lower level" bantams?

Sunday afternoon, walk on skills with MacAdams in Lawrence.

He is tough, and he works the kids hard, but for the most part it is fun. The drills generally have a pay off that keeps kids engaged.

If your kid is serious and wants to work at skills these are great.

He can handle kids at various ages and levels, kids end up in 3 or 4 groups depending on skill level.

It is a good take. We always go if there is no game on Sunday and frequently my bantam-aged son will want to go even if he did have a game.

anything worthwhile on the south shore?

http://www.eliteskills-hockey.com/

This is the real deal. All high end kids, all skating (Edge work & Stride).

How could this "Elite Skills" be any good. They have not even had one session yet. And the website is a poetry site.C'mon man!

Winter skills should be taught by your kids coach you dummies. If your kids coach can't teach him how to skate, shoot, and basically play the game. Then you screwed up with your selection of team/coach. All those hours of ass kissing on the phone in January, February and March. Oh boy

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, but many kids benefit from additional skill work outside of their team practices, and their organization offers good coaching but does not offer a consistently good skills program.

I disagree with this statement wholeheartedly. No coach can give the personalized attention needed for proper and complete development to all 17 players on the team, nor can they single one or two out.

Team practices are a great place for your kid to build the muscle memory needed to utilize the skill instruction provided in a small group or individual setting.

Absent that instruction, the player is mostly going to practice imperfectly and build the wrong muscle memory.

To expect the coach to be the only voice the kid hears isn't going to hep the kid to be everything he can be in the game. Becomes more and more true each year, as a kid gets older.

You are Wrong

Now that's an insightful comment. Very well thought through.

Say it louder, it will be more true.

Really good coaches can get pretty close, especially if they have a really good assistant working with them. It happens, but you are right for the vast majority of situations. Still worth it to supplement with outside skills either way, so my earlier comment holds.

Private Lessons from an experienced figure skating coach are a great choice!! My son is usually the best skater on the ice! This complements his team practices and shooting/stick handling in the driveway!! Some rinks have figure skaters trained to work with hockey players. Check it out.

Please post some names for us. Thank you!

why in the world would you want a figure skater teaching your kid how to skate? Completely different skill set involved here. If you want your kid to dipsy doodle around the ice then BAM! get his head taken off as a bantam sure go for the figure skater instructor. I would stay with a former hockey player as an instructor, arms swinging, 3 quick steps for acceleration etc. Figure skating instructor, lmao!

Can I ask, do your knuckles hurt when they drag?

More and more NHLers took lessons from figure skating instructors on the way up. Far better at teaching than most former hockey players, period, and they have hockey skaters beat in terms of their knowledge of edgework and balance.

You sir are a dummy. Research how many NHL teams have a figure skating coach on staff.

Have not seen a figure skating instructor receive credit for a player being able to run over another player while carrying the puck up ice. Sure, maybe he was able to catch an edge and pivot around Chara ONCE during a game, and he feels like it is the lessons he learned with a figure skating instructor for teaching him how to pivot. But if the player was any good, he was pivoting around bigger players as a junior player before he learned it from a figure skater. Edgework, smedgework...I'll still go with a former pro player as an instructor.

Look up Brian Boyle. You have heard of him, right fruitcake?

Brian Boyle? Hal Gill clone? Yea he is a real mover and shaker at the NHL level, smh. Any other names you want to throw at me, sunshine kid?

Figure skaters have worked with N.H.L. players for decades. Laura Stamm pioneered the practice in the 1970s, notably training Bob Nystrom of the Islanders. Barbara Williams began as the Islanders’ skating coach in 1977 before joining the Devils. During the 1990s, Aidelbaum worked with Pavel Bure, the Canucks star who was known as the Russian Rocket.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/sports/hockey/for-edge-in-a-faster-nhl-players-turn-to-figure-skaters.html?_r=0

That's just one article. Thee are tons, each one with more names.

Look at his point production prior to working with figure skater then after working with figure skater. You have made some funny comments and that is great. However the reality is that more and more NHL players and NHL teams are working with figure skaters. That process will not change.

The ones that I know are Dawn and Deena at Sharper Edge in Concord and Christian Grunnah with Pro Ambitions.

"...Edgework, smedgework..."

Let me guess, you're the same guy with the big, fat, slow kid who is going to dominate the game once he gets to the checking level. Ooof. Some of the better players in the game actually started with figure skating coaches and many of ex-NHL'ers start their kids with figure skating. Edge work is the difference between being a good skater and a very good / great skater. If you don't know the difference then your kid is destined to top-out at 'good.' And in today's game 'good' isn't good enough.

I saw this part of the guy's post and found myself SMH. I understand he was trying to be a comedian, but the reality is, I see lots of kids at all ages that just. can't. skate. They may have been straight line fast enough to compete at younger ages, but at some point if they don't know how to use their edges they will top out, if not leave the sport entirely.

I was at a rink waiting for my kid's skill session to start and saw the Northeast Generals practicing. I'll assume U18, could have been NA3HL. So, pay to play. Let's just call it $10 grand, to make it easy. That's 50 - 75 individual lessons, way more small group lessons.

They weren't very good - at all - but were still trying to "make it." If Dad had spent that $10 grand on skills when the kid was younger, maybe they would have.

Get your kid started in outside skills by probably age 9 or 10. If he's 12, look at his skating versus others and see if he knows what he is doing. If he has a passion for the sport, he will put the work in. If he whines and complains about it being boring, start cutting your losses, because it's only a matter of time before he's among the 85% that quit the sport by middle of HS.

Are they a couple?

Sisters so I doubt it. Maybe, not supposed to judge these days, right?

My kid's school has genderless bathrooms now.

Any rink with a figure skating club . Most of the figure skating coaches are great with hockey players , usually about 50 bucks an hour .... Just get in touch with the figure skating club and they will set you up .... Usually very flexible with times as well , can do it during public skate etc.....

Lets see, Elite Skills is Jason Lawrence and Ken Hodge Jr., who after years of being lead instructor's at Paul Vincents, recently left and decided to start their own program. Anyone who knows anything about power skating/stride efficiency/edges will agree that it doesn't get much better. You can keep going to Select Skills, and watch your bender continue to go through the motions because they have been in business for a while, or you can go with proven instructors who are setting up their own shop for the first time.

Those 2 ( J Lo and KH) ran PV into the ground. Now they start their own show and think it will work. NOT!!!!!

HAHA. Always on the outside looking in. They left because someone was skimming off the pot and nothing was being done about it. Now that they on own, the cost is much more reasonable and the product is and always has been the best.

Can you walk on?

Not Dynamic.

Yeah, skills sorta build.

I talk about this with skills coaches all the time. Some parents truly expect that having their kid skate with someone for an hour is going to make a huge difference. Doesn't work that way.

Lovell Hockey has walk on skills tonight in East Boston at 7.

Dynamic sets the bar. Others just try and catch up. #wantthebestgotothebest