My son started really skating last year. He was 6. But, he wanted to play hockey. So, I enrolled him in a little "Learn to Skate" class geared up with a hockey coach, which he did for 2 sessions. Last Spring, he joined the Mini-Mites and now this year is on the Mites. My husband skates and they go to Stick-n-Puck on weekends. There, he wants to play with the puck. I will occasionally be able to go to a public with him on the weekend, but he wants to "skate fast", race me, play around. He doesn't want to take a lesson from old mom.
Needless to say, his mite team and mite team practices are almost always with a hockey stick in his hand, and 99% of the time is spent stick handling. The closest they get to skating is to do "skate fast and hockey stop" type sprints. The hockey coaches are not teaching him outside edges. Last practice, they put a cone and did a two foot glide around the cone, with the inside foot in front. The kids were utterly confused, and did the cone work with all inside edges. This was less than 2 minutes of a 60 minute practice. The rest was all stick handling. Hardly any of the kids in this group (8 & under) can do an outside edge. Alot of these kids have been skating for 3+ years. (The older kids on the other hockey levels do have outside edges. . . . . ) Figure skaters at the three year mark have alot of edge control . . . .
So, I had enough aggravation watching mini-hockey monsters doing inside edges. Inside edges even done on cross-overs, both feet! (That's a huge loss of potential power). Another loss of potential power are shoulders all set wrong on the crossovers (because they are carrying a stick, and can't do an outside edge, so they are using their shoulders to balance). No kid can do parallel swizzles, less the close together parallel swizzles or power pulls. It was enough to make my blood boil.
So, I enrolled my lad in Learn to Skate Basic 3-4. The skating director was kind enough to allow him to do it in hockey skates. Last night was his first night. He "did" a one-foot glide, but it was poorly for someone who can skate so fast around the rink. He can go only about 5 feet on one foot. He cannot skate on one foot! Coach showed him a three turn, but he did it on an inside three turn. He did do the two foot spin, which amazed me.
I think this is the best $150 I've ever spent on skating. I am so mad I didn't work with him more, but he doesn't really want to work with me anyhow. And, he's "in love" with his coach (one of our young, teenaged ladies who's also beautiful). I secretly hope she can get him into his figure skates.
Today, my Skating magazine came. Page 36 shows that USA Hockey wants the kids enrolled in LTS for a year before playing hockey. This is not happening in practice at my rink, and we are a big hockey rink. There is a Learn to Skate, with the kids in hockey gear. They learn going forward, backwards, but no mastery of edges. They are all under 5 and are then encouraged to just join the mini-mites as the next level. I think the minimum should be all edges, forwards and backwards, solid mohawks, solid crossovers. All of this should happen BEFORE they get a stick.