Jones, who operates Ashlea Jones Athletes in Training across rinks in southern Ontario, said that figure skaters must be very detailed in every movement. How you do it, your speed and execution, everything is so precise and so technical, it is what makes figure skating coaches good skating coaches for hockey players.” Every turn you do in figure skating is marked - your entry to a turn, your exit to a turn it, whether it be an inside edge outside edge.
“Figure skating is such a technical sport. “When I’d be at their games, I would identify things like ‘Oh, that kid’s skating’s a little funny, if he did this, then it would make them better’, ” said Jones on what pushed her from teaching figure skating to coaching hockey players. She decided to become a hockey skating coach after watching her brother’s hockey games. Jones started figure skating when she was only three-years-old and began competing at a national level at 13 before retiring from competitive skating when she was 26. She says she is just “one small piece to the puzzle.”Īshlea Jones, a competitive figure skater for 15 years, has spent the past seven years developing her passion for skating and teaching these figure skating techniques to hockey players. Underhill said the best part about her job was seeing players improve and reach “that next step” and then receiving those texts after a game thanking her. On the surface, hockey and figure skating couldn’t be farther apart but if you watch closely a lot of figure skating techniques are used in almost every single play in the NHL and are now being taught to hockey players at a young age.īarb Underhill, former Canadian Olympic figure skater who worked as a Skating Consultant for the Toronto Maple Leafs for 10 years before leaving the club in November of 2021, is often recognized as a pioneer of translated figure skating techniques to the hockey arena.
When someone thinks of figure skating, it is almost the opposite - beautifully choreographed moves with spinning jumps all set to whimsical music. When one thinks about hockey, they often see it as a highly completive game with huge hits, physical plays and powerful goals. Now, teams and players from house league all the way up to NHL are building these skills through figure skating techniques taught by former figure skaters. There is more to hockey then having the ability to score from the hashmarks like Austin Matthews or to go one-on-five like Connor McDavid. Possessing advanced skating techniques is a big advantage when it comes to playing hockey.
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