When pondering how long my shift should be, I’ve always thought in terms of seconds, not distance. Then I came across this advice:
A general rule of thumb is to never do more than 2 lengths of the ice. In other words, when you hop on the ice, you would forcheck, backcheck, and then once the puck is out of your zone you should change. Reason being that if you decide to go up the ice and attack again, you’re already tired and you’ll never be able to follow the play back and cover your man,
This makes sense. Sometimes the puck stays in one zone for longer than a minute, and there isn’t as much skating involved. The real important factor isn’t how long you’ve been skating, it’s how far. This could be anywhere from 30 seconds to two minutes. Efficient line changes will ensure your team maximizes their stamina. Check out the full post…
Five Tips to Last Longer [Built for Hockey]
Tags: conditioning, shifts
Hope the advice helps! If you keep this in mind, it'll really help you out towards the end of the game. At times when you should be dead tired, you'll have plenty of energy.
Have a good one!
Ben@BuiltForHockey