skills training

Skills Training

The Minnesota Steel Skills training program is great for advanced mite/U8 players, squirt/U10, and peewee/U12 age players. This program focuses on the following aspects: Skating mechanics, overspeed training, explosive starts, incorporating deception with stickhandling, receiving passes on forehand, backhand, in skates, and behind the player, passing, and different types of shots. 

The Minnesota Steel coaching staff ensures each player is performing each skill with proper biomechanics to maximize the athlete’s development. Practices are designed to provide deep practice to hardwire skills into our young athletes’ brains.

Deep practice is high quality repetitions to develop the proper neurological systems (muscle memory) to master each skill. It is imperative that players get high repetitions, but more importantly, they need to be done with the correct form and biomechanics. Deep practice breaks skills up into small chunks, starting off slow then progressively getting faster. Developing these skills is achieved by the following approach:

  1. Provide players with the Repetition and Time needed to develop muscle memory to master a particular skill.
  2. Providing an environment for players to make mistakes.
  3. Coaches providing feedback and showing players how to fix mistakes.

Minnesota Steel Formula for athlete development:

Quality Repetitions + Making Mistakes + Fixing Mistake = Deep Practice = Perfection

Minnesota Steel takes this development approach with all of our programs. By incorporating this method into our program, we are able to teach our athletes how to properly train on their own. We’re not just going through the motions. It is performing a skill, stopping when we make a mistake, assessing what we did wrong and how we can correct the mistake. As part of the Future Prospect program, players will have access to our off-ice curriculum.

Skills 2023 Details:

  • The program will be broken up into two sections:
    • Spring Session: April 4th through May 18th
    • Summer Session: August 1st through August 31st 
  • Practice will be an hour in length
  • Practice twice a week
    • Tuesday and Thursday Evenings
  • On-Ice Training: 24 hours (Spring 14 hours & Summer 10 hours)

Register today to reserve your athlete’s spot!

Skills Schedule - Times Coming Soon

Date Day Time Location
April 4th
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
April 6th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
April 11th
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
April 13th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
April 18th
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
April 20th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
April 25th
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
April 27th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
May 2nd
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
May 4th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
May 9th
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
May 11th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
May 16th
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
May 18th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 1st
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 3rd
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 8th
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 10th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 15th
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 17th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 22nd
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 24th
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 29th
Tuesday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena
August 31st
Thursday
7:45 - 8:45 PM
Waconia Ice Arena