How To Do Hockey Shots

Hi, I'm Adam Larkin, I'm East London Hockey Club's first team Captain, and I've been playing hockey for around twelve years. I'm just going to do a little demonstration of kind of the ideas behind what we're trying to do when we're striking a hockey ball at a goal. So, Tom is a goalkeeper, and the key points to come away when striking a ball is that when you're entering the circle or the D, and that's the opportune time to get your shots away because that gives the minimum amount of time for the defender to come and tackle you and the minimum amount of time for the goalkeeper to set himself.

So things to remember about a goalkeeper are when you're shooting the ball, that there are certain areas of the goalkeeper that he's very strong in terms of pads and in terms of movement and areas where he's very, very weak. So, one thing to remember is the goalkeepers have very strong pads in the bottom half of their legs, so feet to the knee, they've also got very good pads on their hands and in their chest. So they're very, very mobile at this height.

So, when shooting at a goal, it's often the best method to keep the ball on the floor, keep it low, and shoot across the goalkeeper into the corners of the net, and if you are going to try to strike the ball high into the goal, anything around this kind of level here is very, very easy for a goalkeeper because they've got their hands free and they're able to stop the ball and if you're going to go high, you need to go very high because it's very difficult for the goalkeeper to get across particularly and bear in mind his hands are going to be less mobile because it's going to have a stick in it as well as just a big padded glove. And often the most difficult areas for a goalkeepers to get at knee height and wide, because if you demonstrate how you can move your knee, this area is very difficult to cover because if you imagine the hands coming across here, it's also very, very weak, so this arena here is the optimum area and if possible, to be trying to score a goal. And other things to remember in terms of shooting would be body position to make sure that you're giving yourself as much space and time as possible with defenders trying to come and tackle you.

So, if you imagine a defender is coming from this side, it's important I get my body across and I'm able to shoot while using my body to shield myself from the defenders. And another important technique with shooting is actually using the shot to create a chance for another player, so it's often a lot of goals you see in international hockey that are scored are from shots that are shot wide of the post for a second player to come in and score a tap in from the yard. The goalkeeper's ready to save a shot from here, so he's set, he's not mobile on his feet so there's a massive space at the back post for somebody to come in and score.

So it's important to remember that when you're in the D shooting, it's not always the best option. So that's the basics of trying to score a goal, in particular shooting, just in terms where we're going to try to put the ball and the areas that the goalkeeper's going to struggle to make saves. .