What dose it take to be a world champion?

yeah thats a good theory tommy, until you come up against someone who doesnt want to get beaten just as much as you... which is pretty much everyone you'll ever come up against at a big tournament.

then.... well. if they are fitter or faster than you, they'll simply be fitter and faster than you.

that's the great thing about big tournaments that everyone puts a lot of training into... pretty much everyone is as fit, strong, fast and determined as each other, and most guys will have similar hand-speeds and skills. (everyone is in the same ballpark at least, with maybe some exceptions) i guess that's what makes it interesting... thats where different styles of play and different tactics come into it.

often the biggest point of difference between players under pressure is their comfort level and confidence... but it sounds like you'll have an advantage in that respect.

you go girl!

I am pretty sure ice-cream, getting cold and letting your fitness slip wouldn't be the ideal preparation for a world champ! :lol:

Let's be honest...there are some people no matter how un-fit they are, they will never be able to play smart hockey...easier to get someone fitter then smarter

And the ones that are smart know they have to be fit as well. Although eating ice-cream is fun!

What about performance inhancing marshmellows tan?

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Underwater Hockey Rules!

Daniel Tetreault and I used to chat about this topic many years ago (what made champions not chat about ice cream... although we did go to get softserve from Dairy Queen in Montreal quite a lot!).

There is essentially a hierarchy/triangle diagram that explains the attributes of a world champion. I'll see if I can find it somewhere and post it, but essentially it was something like this:

Level 1: Basic fitness - Every does/can have this
Level 2: Basic skills - Everyone who plays develops these
Level 3: Specific fitness - High level training and fitness specific to the game. Only some people have this, but most people could develop this.
Level 4: High level skills - Only some people have this but a number of people could develop this with practice
Level 5: Team skills - this is specific to playing in a high level team. Not everybody gets this (for some reason). "It is far better to have a great team of players rather than a team of great players"
Level 6: Mental attitude/determination - Few people have the right aptitude and attitude and this is what separates the champions from good athletes. If all else is equal, that is, if two people have the same level of fitness, skills, etc all that separates them is something deep within their mind. This is the pinnacle of the triangle.

Daniel, there's a blast from the past. Not only is his pyramid of success the simplest way to show step-by-step how to get to the top, he was a huge supporter for dryland puckwork. I recall playing against him in the last millenium and he hadn't been in the water for over a year, but you couldn't tell by his puckskills. It was like he never took a break. At home he would shoot a puck into a kickboard against the wall so it would bounce back and he could do it again, and again, and... And it showed in the water. I use the pyramid for any clinic I run and have modified my puckboard to have a rubber band mounted to work like his puckboard.

...my puckboard? i have heard of this but still not clear on what it involves.

i used to flick a puck on the carpet into the back of a springy couch while watching tv and wagging school during the day. it'd bounce back and you'd have to catch and control it but it was just a little light thing, an ice hockey puck, and i didn't continue it after a while.

so what, this is a real puck you're talking about?

Leelee - What you are talking about is pretty standard although there are a few other variations.

I used to have a 2400mm x 1200mm x 16mm whiteboard (white melamine coated board) sheet with a 100mm wooden block at one end. This block then had high density rubber on it.
To make it even slippier you could use come furniture polish on the surface of th board and the puck. Lay on your stomach and use either an ice-hockey puck (for speed) or a normal puck for strength.

Also, Daniel used to have a folding puckboard covered in felt that he used to use to practice and warm up with. He would sit it on his lap - not so much for flicking obviously, but for skills.

We also used to make all sorts of other implements such as an ice-hockey puck with a string through it attached to the end of the stick, street hockey puck (plastic puck with little wheels/ball bearings that poked through it), ceramic ball etc.

I will try and get Daniel to sign up and share some of his information - he is more willing to these days :-)

If you want to know if all or any of these things work, just consider than Benson looks like an amateur in stickwork compared to Daniel (used to) and guys like Yves Lebeau particularly.

ok. so you are sliding the puck along the board and it's hitting the rubber and bouncing back to you and you're controlling it, yeah?

how much of that stuff did you do kelly? to be fair it sounds like it could help. i have seen south african youth teams bouncing a ping pong ball around between them with their sticks as a playful warmup, i guess thats a similar idea. me... i played a bit of carpet hockey in front of the telly but my main tip on skills and puck control is playing piggy in the middle, and staying in after every session mucking round with the puck. (i had to give up the flicking against the couch thing after i flicked over it a few times and put some dents in the walls and mum was NOT happy)

to be honest though.... i dunno about the whole skills thing.

i know that sounds weird. i have always tried to work on my skills and i used to treat it as the focus of my game, but the guys i see around the game now who are most influential and who make the most impact, or have done over the last few years at a worlds level, are the guys who have a reasonable level of control but do basic things with it very well... simple, strong, tackles, turns, passes.

maybe our game has compressed bodies on the bottom to such an extent that skills are becoming more marginalised... well, certainly. there just isn't the space most of the time.

though, i certainly think that the ability to control the puck properly on the stick is crucial to get anywhere... many top players have rubbish or no control of the puck and fight it to make it do what they want even at a worlds level. those boards could certainly help in that respect.

so what other crazy think-outside-the-square ideas did you guys come up with back in the day?

A lot in that post liam... What Daniel has emphasized, and is apperent in the Canadians that are still working under his supervision is what you are saying in a way. Strong fundamentals. This is key in any sport, but from my experience in other sports as well as hockey, those who have the strongest fundamentals are also able to do some wicked stuff with the ball/puck/whatever. In college, I watched the captain of my school's soccer team juggle a ball for ~30 mins. All the way through my track warm up and stretching. The ball never hit the ground, and he was doing the wildest stuff with the ball behind his head and catching in behind his knee and more. In a game however I don't recall ever seeing him do anything out of the ordinary, but his fundamentals were as close to perfect as i could imagine. I thought you hinted at, if not came out and said it, in the twist and swirl thread about developing these things to make the "normal" movements easier/more comfortable.

Another thing Daniel is/was a very big proponent of is utilizing every surface of the playing area of your stick. Practicing simple puck movement and being able to control the puck with top, side, front, back, point all equally. Not doing profound things with the puck, just doing the fundamentals really well in any position/with the stick in any orientation. The puckboard stuff is not just flicking/shooting and catching. It is also for perfecting simple movements, and perfecting them at speed. So that, as you put it, the game compresses with more bodies on the bottom thus the more these type of skills become important.

How's that old saying go? "The team who wins is the one who makes the least mistakes" or something like that.

If you can perfect all the simple basic skills and fundamentals of the game then you shouldn't make mistakes. It seems the most sound advice for being good at a sport. I think that is what a top team at an elite level brings to the competition. Added to that is each player in the team who add their own little bit of flair and individuality to the game which is something extra that they excel in.

Perfecting the basic skills is what is important so that you have great feel for the puck and can then concentrate on what else is going on around you, ie what the opposition is doing, where your team mates are, what option you should take. It's the same with fitness and breathold. If you can get them as good as you can so that you don't have to think about those things in a game you will have more capacity to think about actual game play.

As for utilizing every surface of your playing area of your stick, it's a most valid point. We've had many a table tennis tournament using hockey sticks instead of table tennis bats. Also, although it's not the playing area, I've had many a flicking comp with Kelly turning our sticks around and using the handle to flick. This just shows how important tecnique is and that if you've got good tecnique you should be able to flick with just about anythying.