High School Hockey Tryout Prep: The 5-Week Plan

Most of this plan is off-ice because that is what is available. Book one stick-and-puck or public skate each week and run the on-ice block in full gear, every time.

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Full-depth squats with a three-second hold at the bottom, fifteen, three sets. Reverse lunges, ten each leg, three sets. A skating-stance wall hold, sixty seconds, three rounds. Feel the weight in the middle of the foot, knees over toes, chest up. A high school coach can see in the first conditioning drill which kids have been in this position since spring and which have not.

One leg, slight bend, stick in both hands. Thirty seconds still, then ten slow reaches in each direction with the free foot, then ten single-leg hip hinges reaching the stick toward the floor. Switch legs, three rounds. The standing knee never drifts inward. This is the strength that keeps a stride long when the legs are tired.

Three hundred touches, eyes on the wall: one hundred narrow and quick, one hundred wide, one hundred around the body. Every day of the plan. The hands should be automatic by tryouts so the eyes can be on the ice.

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Forty-five seconds hard in skating stance, either slide board, lateral shuffles, or stride jumps, then ninety seconds of walking. Eight rounds. Write down how the last round felt compared to the first. Next week you close that gap.

Fifty wrist shots, weight transferring back foot to front. Fifty snap shots with almost no windup. Twenty-five shots off a pass bounced from a board. Call a corner before every shot. High school coaches want a quick release from the slot and a puck that gets to the net from the point. Nothing more.

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Lateral bounds over the markers, stuck landings, ten each way, three sets. Crossover steps on the floor, ten each direction, three sets, pushing through the whole foot. Then continuous bounds for twenty seconds, rest forty, four rounds. This is the crossover start and the first three strides.

One forty-five second interval, then fifteen shots at the pad immediately. Rest sixty seconds. Six rounds. The shot goes heavy by round three. Fix it with legs and weight transfer. This is the third period of a tryout scrimmage, built in a garage.

Duration: 30 min · Equipment: Full gear including helmet and neck guard, a booked stick-and-puck or public skate

Two easy laps. Ten stops each side, facing each way. Crossovers around a circle, ten each direction, under leg pushing. Tight turns around your glove, both ways. Backward skating with crossovers if there is room. Five blue-to-blue sprints from a dead stop. Then ten minutes with a puck at speed through whoever is on the ice, head up. Weak side twice.

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Sixty seconds hard, ninety seconds easy, seven rounds. The extra fifteen seconds is the long shift a coach sends a tryout kid on to see what happens. Stay low through it.

Receive a pass and decide before it arrives: shoot, pass back, or pull wide and go. Say the choice out loud. Twenty reps, then switch. Add a rule: every third rep the choice is the simple one, the pass, no matter what. High school coaches want the simple play made fast.

On the floor, walk through where you stand in your own zone without the puck: winger on the wall, center low, defense in front. Then a basic breakout, wing to the wall, center swinging. Say each spot out loud. When the coach installs it at tryouts, it should not be the first time you have heard the words.

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Three forty-five second intervals, full rest between, best of the month. Five lateral bounds each way. Then stop. The conditioning is banked.

Fifty shots, corner called, quick release, ending on one that went where you said. End every session this week on a good one.

Skates sharpened at least one skate before the first session. Gear laid out, dry, checked. Two nights of real sleep before day one. Nothing new at the rink.

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Run the plan, then after the first session tell us how the conditioning skate went and which system the coach installed first. That is where the next plan starts.