Angling & Checking were a major focus this year in our Southern Tier Admirals AAAskills sessions. 

Angling is one of the toughest skills to master and cannot be worked on enough. Players who consistently demonstrates good angling skills by protecting good ice (Inside The Dots) and forcing their opponent to Bad Ice (Outside The Dots) will have major roles on their teams. 

Here are some great game situation examples this past season with a U15 FWD in games when he was called up to play with our U16 team.  His great angling routes deny clean entries and rush decisions for the puck carrier to either force a turnover or a dump. 

The last few clips show Angling practice clips with a few of our STA teams this year. 

The Acronym we use to teach Angling is SAACC:

S – STICK (stick details take away the middle and then stick on puck)

A – ANGLE (steer opponent to outside by matching speed and not over committing too early)

A – ACCELERATE (accelerating after establishing the angle)

C – CONTACT (apply contact/take skin once closing space on the opponent, Limit Crossovers Nearing Contact Point)

C – CONTAIN (containing the opponent on the wall and forcing a turnover)

This SAACC acronym was taught by current Chicago Wolves Assistant Coach Dan Price