Developing muscle memory to produce a smooth, coordinated movement pattern for efficient skating is key.

There are several important skating characteristics of fast hockey players. One of the most important is the width of the stride.  This means a wide stride, not a long stride. The reason stride width is important for speed in hockey skating is because a fast player needs to quickly get his or her skate back on the ice (after pushing off) to start the next push-off.

Stride Width Research and Observation of Fast Players

Pierre Page was the first person/researcher to find that fast hockey players have a wide stride. Page compared fast to slow hockey players and found the faster players had the following to indicate they had a wider stride:

• a wider left stride
• a wider right stride
• greater width between strides
• greater hip abduction angle (hip abduction is when the leg is pushing to the side)

Wayne Marino (University of Windsor) found that velocity in hockey skating is dependent on the number of strides taken over a certain distance. He also found the faster a hockey player skated, the quicker they got the skate back on the ice after push-off. This means fast hockey skaters have quick, wide strides, and get their skate on the ice quickly after push-off.

Researchers from the University of Calgary found there was greater hip abduction (wide stride) as players increased speed from acceleration to striding. They suggest an important strategy in hockey is the transition from pushing backward (hip extension) during acceleration to pushing to the side with a wide stride (hip abduction) as skating velocity increases. These researchers also found that greater hip abduction velocity (pushing to the side quickly) during the propulsive phase of a stride was indicative of fast skating.

If you are not a “fan” of research, one of the best ways to identify that fast hockey players have wide strides is to watch them skate. Take a look at these four players, and go to YouTube to watch other players. The best videos to watch are the NHL’s Fastest Skater competition. These videos are valuable to use when showing young players how to skate fast. That is to say, every young hockey player wants to skate like an NHL player or an elite female player.

NHL Fastest Skater 2020, Wide Stride after acceleration

Kendall Coyne-Schofield

Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon

Hockey Players have to push to the side

Gerrit Jan van Ingen Schenau, a Dutch speed skating researcher, stated that because the push-off skate is actually moving forward as it pushes off, it cannot exert a force straight backward during striding. An essential technical aspect of skating is that the direction of the push-off is perpendicular to the direction of the gliding skate. Many other researchers have indicated it is impossible for the push-off skate to push straight backward during forward striding (except during acceleration). This unique characteristic of skating is caused by the low coefficient of friction of the ice. Because of the physics of the ice and the laws of movement, fast hockey players must push to the side which creates a wide stride. This is the only comparison that is relevant between speed skaters and hockey players.

Stride Width vs Stride Length

Unlike hockey players, speed skaters accentuate the length of the stride, the recovery phase, and the glide phase for three reasons:

1. They need to stay very low to the ice to improve their aerodynamics to conserve energy.
2. A long stride has been found to be not as fatiguing during the long races.
3. They wear a “clap skate” which has a hinge at the ball of the foot/skate which allows the skate to stay on ice longer, thus a longer stride and a longer push-off.

This skating technique can only be done in speed skating because they skate straight for approximately 100-meters, turn, then skate 100-meters again. Whereas hockey players may skate straight for 2 – 5 strides, then they will turn, stop, pivot backwards, etc.

Velocity in speed skating is more dependent on stride length than stride frequency. This is the opposite of hockey skating. Speed skaters have a long push-off phase, a long glide phase, and a long recovery phase. The long push-off phase is accentuated by the clap skate. After push-off, speed skaters bring their recovery skate back under their body (see picture below), and when they put it back on the ice, they land on their outside edge, roll onto their inside edge, then push-off. They have a long recovery to conserve energy.

Speed skating techniques do not translate to hockey skating. The kind of biomechanics that speed skaters use is impossible for hockey players for two primary reasons:

• Hockey players cannot have a long recovery because they need to get the skate on the ice quickly after pushing off to start the next push-off or to maintain a wide base of support for body contact, shooting, passing, puckhandling, etc.
• Hockey players, do not, and cannot, stay in an extreme low body position because of the nature of hockey with puckhandling, 2-foot gliding, and all the other skills used during a game.

Research to practice

In a previous article, Investigation: Biomechanical differences between Fast and Slow skaters, there are drills that can used to enhance the stride width of all players. It is the experience of the author that many younger players (U9 – U15) have not developed their “muscle memory” to produce a smooth coordinated movement pattern for efficient skating. As such, these young players can have a narrow stride and a long recovery. The use of the skating drills in the previous article (“Cone Skating”) can be used by younger players to increase their stride width and a quick recovery.  Based on working with older players (Junior, college, and pro) they can sometimes have what the author refers to as a “whip” with their skate after push-off.  This means they “whip” their skate in towards the mid-line of the body, which increases recovery time, making them slightly slower.

With younger and older players, if there is a long, narrow recovery, it takes longer to get the skate on the ice after push-off, and a player will be slower because it takes longer to start the next push-off. This is why it is incongruent for hockey coaches to teach players to have a long recovery where the skate lands under the mid-line of the body, even though many hockey organizations teach coaches to teach skating like this. A long recovery is a characteristic of a slower hockey player.

Conclusion

Pierre Page’s Masters thesis was the first study to identify that fast hockey players have a wide stride. Other researchers have confirmed what Page found. Even without research, it is easy to see that fast NHL players have a wide stride by watching them skate in videos of the Fastest Skater Competition.