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*CLICK HERE FOR A PEEK BEHIND THE SCENES AT PRACTICE!*
MONDAY MARCH 10, 2008
Not as big of a crowd today as I
thought there was going to be given that Gwinnett County schools
were not in session today. I'd say there were 40 people at practice
today.
Normal players on the ice early (Moose, Nik, Toby, Thor, Slates, and
Boulton). The team went onto the other sheet of ice to start
practice and stayed there for the first 25 minutes of practice.
Kari was not wearing his new mask or pads. Not sure why as he has
been wearing them lately to get them broken in.
White did not skate today.
First drill, after they skated around in circles on the ice, was one
on one battles for the puck. The guys basically did this over and
over and would stop when Weeks would blow the whistle.
Here's a video.
Next was a drill where the player would bring the puck in from
center ice and shoot on net. After the player would take a shot he
would stay in front of the net for a deflection or to shoot in a
rebound.
Here's a video.
After that was a drill where it was two on none and they would pass
and bring the puck into the zone and shoot.
Here's a video.
That drill morphed into a drill where 2 sets of 2 players would
basically do the same thing as above but the following 2 players
would shoot after the first 2 players had already shot and were
exiting the zone.
Here's a video.
Next was a drill where the players would gain the zone and shoot on
net. Sometimes a shot would come from D men at the point with the
original players screening the goalie and trying for
deflections/rebounds.
Here's a video.
During the drill above Crusher (Christensen) showed some really good
moves coming in on net.
After that was a 2 on 1 drill.
Here's a video.
Next was a 4 on 2 drill where the group would enter the zone via
passing and would shoot.
Here's a video.
Last official drill was a PP drill although the video does not
really make it look like the PP drill it was. Basically the group of
players was entering the zone and working the PP through puck
possession and passing.
Official practice lasted 45 minutes. Up until that point the only
emotion shown was during the final PP drill and when someone would
score. When that happened some of the players would yell.
After the official practice the guys split up at the 2 ends of the
ice. On the near end the guys were in a semi circle taking passes
from the board down by the net and were shooting on Kari. All heck
broke loose and the guys were cheering wildly when someone would
score. Larsen scored two times and the guys erupted. Once, after
Kari had been scored on a bit, X shot the puck in himself without
passing and Kari was not expecting it. He kind of tilted his head to
the side looking at X as if to say "what the heck was that". Here
are 2 videos of the fun. It was great to see them having some fun.
Clip #1.
Clip #2.
Observations:
1. Perrin appears to have a slight "Lower body injury" which DW
asked him about when they moved from one sheet to the other. DW
asked him how it was, because Perrin was obviously hurting, and then
told him not to skate if he did not think he could and not to hurt
himself. Perrin did finish out the practice and I asked him how it
felt. He said it hurt. I don't think it's a major injury because he
finished out the practice.
2. DW joined the team on the ice when they moved from on sheet of
ice to the other.
3. At the beginning of practice it seemed to me like the drills were
not really being completed all that crisply by the players.
4. Jeff Schultz was at practice today along with CC.
5. When switching sides Kovy and Slava walked together. When they
walked by the spectator stands at the normal sheet Slava saw a game
program with Kovy's picture on it which the fan wanted to get
signed. He said as he looked down at the program "Oh Kovy" kind of
kidding Kovy a bit and Kovy just shook his head and did not say
anything. It was funny seeing Slava kid with Kovy about how many
good fans Kovy has in ATL (that's how I took Slava's comment). BTW,
Kovy signed a lot of autographs today.
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