Picture this.

You’re 8 years old, and you’re headed to hockey practice.

It’s a cold Saturday morning in February, your mom made hot chocolate and packed goldfish for the ride, and you’re blowing hot air on the windows of the car and then doodling in the mist it creates on the window. You’re jacked up for practice, maybe you’re half dressed in your gear, and you can’t wait to see your friends who go to different schools after not seeing them for most of the week.

It’s pure bliss; you’re hoping for a shooting practice, a skills practice, or the ever-elusive 3 on 3 scrimmage.

Then, the unthinkable happens. Your coach blows the whistle and calls for your least favourite drill. Practice ruined, vibe killed.

While most of our memories of growing up playing hockey are nothing but positive, there are a couple of drills that make us shudder at the thought of them, so here are five of the most brutal minor hockey drills to jog your worst hockey memories.

 

5. The Gauntlet

Okay, what was the point of this? We get we had to learn how to give and take a body check somehow, but looking back on it, there must have been a better way than getting clobbered by every person on your team. We have serious suspicions that coaches only use this one cause body checking 8 years olds who misbehave is frowned upon, so they just get the entire team to do it instead. It’s pretty fun to be in the line, but when it’s your turn to go through it, it is completely brutal.

 

 

4. The Iron Cross

Coaches had WAY TOO MUCH fun with this one. The distance between each of these little sprints might not seem like much, but after you’ve done a couple, it seems miles long.

 

 

3. Backwards Circles

We had to learn our backwards crossovers somewhere, and while doing all five circles as quickly as possible was tiring enough, the first few times we had to do them backwards was straight up soul-crushing.

 

 

2. The Lightning Drill

Can you tell we hated skating drills yet? Think suicides, but using the lines on the ice to further torture players with the back and forth sprints. This one usually came after a tough loss, and ensured that it would NEVER happen again.

 

 

1. Figure Eights

One last skating drill to end it off on. The sound of our coaches yelling ‘don’t stop moving your feet!!!!!!!!!’ is still echoing through our minds. This one had out heads spinning and our hearts thumping, and was generally the worst.