How to Stickhandle

Stickhandling is a most fundamental skill in ice hockey. I urge you to learn how to stickhandle properly from the start; it's too difficult and time consuming to learn stickhandling over if you've been doing it wrong for years. Professional hockey players don't learn how to stickhandle when they get drafted, they put tons of prior hours into learning how. To stickhandle is to dazzle; to dazzle is to get recognized; to get recognized is to make it to the NHL.

How To Hold Stick To Handle Pucks Hold the stick with top hand fairly rigid, gripping the very top of the stick. Handle the bottom of the stick with lower hand about an elbow length down the shaft. Soft hands on the hockey stick handle the puck with feeling and cushioning for better control. If the stick is held too stiffly, then the puck can easily bounce away. Soft hands on the stick will cradle the puck. Practice this with an egg!

How To Stickhandle - Basic Motion

To begin, get the feel of the motion by holding both hands on your stick with it raised out in front of you, slightly off to stick side of your body, at shoulder height, pointing straight ahead. Your bottom arm's elbow will be almost locked straight, and your top arm's elbow will be bent about 90 degrees. Now rotate your stick using your top hand to steer the stick blade in the air, and let the shaft of the stick move freely in the loose grip of your lower hand. That wrist roll is mostly the feel of stickhandling. The top hand maneuvers the puck. Place the stick on the ground or ice and try the same motion. Get used to the wrist roll. Practice it relentlessly without anything to stickhandle.

The Feel Of Stickhandling

"Dribbling" the puck back and forth in front of the body, approximately between the width of the skates, is recommended for beginners to get the feel of handling the puck on the stick. After much repetition, step two would be to raise the head 45 degrees or so while stickhandling and take in a lot more of the rink and bodies with peripheral vision.

How To Stickhandle In Any Situation

Are you confident you're a good enough stickhandler to control the puck in any situation?

It is necessary to repeatedly try moves and practice tricks with the stick, handling a puck in ways that may never even be used in their actual form. The theory is that if you can do moves well in your practicing, and they're beyond what a mere mortal will ever have to do on ice, then you'll be able to do more routine dekes, um, more routinely.