Gabe Gifford Hockey

Your instructor Hello everyone, Gabriel Gifford here! I have been playing hockey since the age of six, almost 13 years now, and have played from Mite B to 18AAA and Junior A hockey. I have had many coaches over the years all with different styles of training and coaching, some being amazing and others not so great. However, one thing about hockey, unlike other sports, is that it's extremely expensive and this gatekeepers a lot of people from being able to reach their full potential. Small group lessons at my local rink can cost from $60 to $100 per lesson depending on the coach. Obviously, this makes getting the ice time necessary to become great extremely difficult and so from the age of 14, I started to coach and develop drills on my own. Taking what coaches told me during practice and the occasional private lesson I developed drills to get better and improve at the aspects of hockey that I lacked. This launched me into coaching whether I knew it or not. The rink-rat in me wanted to be on the ice for as long as I could every day; however, just going to stick and puck to shoot at the boards never really gave me any satisfaction and felt like a waste of time. Coaching myself through the feedback of others allowed me to improve drastically going into my second year of Bantams and helped me become a crucial part of my team's success. From that day on, I have been coaching myself and developing my skills as a player while taking on two extremely bad clients; my brother and my sister. While my brother was welcome for purely selfish reasons, such as being able to work on catching passess with speed or aquick release, my sister was forced upon me by my parents. While I never thought of myself as a coach, my parents had me take my sister on the ice and work on skating, shooting, and stickhandling. After, a few weeks, there was a drastic improvement in her league play. As for my brother, he accelerated and played at a higher level than I did at his age due to my help and his hard work. Realizing (actually seeing) success, I started coaching a couple of my sister’s and brother’s friends; we saw improvement and success for them as well. When coupled with the positive reviews from their parents, I was starting to see this as a career. And here we are. My experience and 12 years of playing competitive hockey will help you improve your skills and develop as a player by teaching you how to improve at playmaking, skating, stickhandling, and shooting all while making your use of time and money more efficiently. Start training today to improve your hockey skill.