Practice 11/20/07

Pretty good turnout today by fans for today's practice. I'd say there musy have been 30 people there which is not bad considering that most of the schools are not out yet for the holiday.

Kari and Ondrej started out the practice by coming out first and doing some skating drills. Weeks had them moving forward, back, side to side, back, and then to the place where they started. If Kari's injury was bothering him it was not evident from how he skated during the drill.

Thorburn and Haydar then came out to take some shots on Kari and Ondrej. Moose had come out onto the ice at that point but was on the other side of the ice taking shots from Havelid. Kari looked ok, as did Ondrej, except it was evident that Kari was fighting the puck a bit.

Here are a list of the players who I noticed did not skate: Kovy, Hoss, Slava, X, Klee, Holik, and Slater. I believe the rest of the team was on the ice. Waddell was not on the ice but did come out from the locker room for a few minutes to talk to some people. The players who did not skate were at the facility so they were probably in the back with the trainer or working out.

The first main drill was an interesting skating/passing drill. Three players would skate down the ice a few feet apart from each other. They had 2 pucks for 3 players and first then went to 3 pucks. They objective was to constantly pass the puck between the three players while skating down the ice. It was kind of like juggling the puck between the 3 players with there always being a pass in process.

The next drill was a touch pass drill where the players did touch passes at center ice and then came into the offensive zone 3 on 1 and took a shot. They did this drill for quite some time.

The final drill was 2 men against the goalie. They had to score or else they were forced to skate the length of the ice. If they scored they only skated back to center ice.

As you would expect, there was alot of laughs and fun today given the team's recent success.

Moose left earlier than the other two goalies who were two of the last players to leave the ice. Little was the last player to leave the ice as Ken Klee's kids were on the ice with him after the main practice was over. Little was playing goalie and the two Klee boys were taking shots.

Waddell's daughter also skated after most of the players had left the ice.

Observations

1. The players seem to enjoy the practices now more than they did under Hartley...even when we were winning under Hartley. McCrimmon has good drills which the players seem to enjoy as most of the drills have some element of competition to them (ie, the players against the goalies or the players on one side of center ice versus the players on the other side).

2. Kari was not happy during practice. To me it seems like he wants to be stopping all the shots he faces during practice but is just not back to where he needs to be yet for that to happen. He was ok after practice when he was signing autographs but overall I would not say he was in a good mood during the practice.

3. Steve Weeks has a black eye and it looked like he got some stiches after getting hit in the eye with the puck last week during practice.

4. The AJC was there covering the practice (not Custance, but Carroll) so I expect to see a story out of her in the AJC before too long.


Next post will be Thursday afternoon late after the Turkey day practice.