(rock music)
- Hey guys, it's Jeremy,
from HowToHockey.com,
with The Hockey Movement.
And in this video, I'm doing a review
of HockeyShot's newest synthetic ice.
Yes, synthetic ice.
That means it's plastic that
you can actually skate on.
Pretty crazy.
I've had it in my garage
for a few months now.
I've skated on it, tested it a lot.
Really excited to do this review for you.
So, is it worth it?
Well, that's what we're gonna
talk about in this video.
First I'm gonna give you a close up look.
I'll show you my setup,
talk a little bit about the stuff,
give you some details,
and then I'm gonna skate on it
and let you know how it feels.
So let's get right to it.
Here's the setup I have.
So it's 16 feet wide
and it's 22 feet long.
That's not a huge area,
but it's enough to do some
pretty sweet stick handling,
some good shooting, and then
a little bit of skating.
So you can't go full
stride, obviously, in here,
but you can still have the skates on
when you're shooting, stick handling,
and work on some footwork.
So, good area to work on a
lot of fundamental stuff,
and then once you get on the ice,
you go full speed with it.
So I'll give you a close
up look at the panels.
Show you how they're installed.
You can see right here,
it's got that dove tail.
Basically, all you gotta do,
have a nice, flat surface,
you lay these down, get a rubber mallet,
pound them in, and that's it.
Really easy to install these.
Total cost of a setup like
this is around $3,500.
The price various depending on
the thickness of the synthetic ice.
So if it's thinner, it'll cost you less,
if it's thicker, it'll cost you more.
The more you use it, the thicker you want
because as you skate, little pieces
of the plastic actually peel off,
especially when you're doing hockey stops,
tight turns, and stuff like that.
So you want thicker stuff if
you're gonna use it a lot.
Now, $3,500 sounds a little expensive,
but if you think about it,
if you have a sweet area like this set up,
and you can use it for 10 years,
it costs you about $350 per year.
The amount of use you're
actually gonna get out of it,
if you use it a lot,
is pretty substantial.
It's gonna cost less than
registration for hockey,
so if you think long term,
it actually can be a
pretty cool investment
and a lot of fun as well.
Especially if you have a few kids
running around in here playing hockey.
So I built these dashboards myself.
I used a local company.
It cost about a thousand
dollars to do the dashboards,
and I went almost all the way around.
I'm gonna toss these
skates on pretty soon,
and tell you how this stuff feels,
but first, I figured I should talk
a little bit about
maintenance of synthetic ice,
and also the different between
the stuff from HockeyShot
and other brands.
So you may have noticed right here,
there's a little bit of buildup going on.
So this is from pucks and hockey tape.
Obviously, a Zamboni cannot come in here
and clear this area off.
It's not like ice, right?
It's plastic.
So you do get a little bit of buildup,
and also because I'm in a garage
and I'm in here with
boots and shoes and stuff,
get a little bit of buildup of sand.
So what I do to maintain
it is I use a push broom,
and I sweep it the best I can,
but there is a little bit of buildup.
So what happens is that's gonna dull
your skates a little bit faster.
It's also gonna slow
you down a little bit,
but you still can skate on it,
just pretty much makes you work harder.
With HockeyShot, according to their stats,
their synthetic ice is much
denser than normal brands.
Also, it's self-lubricating.
So what that means is, with other brands,
you have to sweep it off a lot
because you get a lot of plastic shavings,
and you also have to put something on it
to make it a little more slick.
With their stuff though,
because it's a lot denser,
it doesn't peel as much plastic off,
it lasts longer, and
it's self-lubricating.
So that's one advantage
to getting the stuff
from HocketShot versus the other stuff.
I haven't been able to test
this versus other stuff,
but I have been able to skate on it,
so that's what I'm gonna do right now.
Toss on the skates, show you a demo,
and then talk about how it feels.
(dramatic music)
Alright, so the ultimate question.
What does synthetic ice feel like,
and does it feel like normal ice?
Well the answer is no it doesn't feel
exactly the same as real ice
because nothing will
ever match the feeling
as sharpened steel cutting through ice.
Now it is a pretty good substitute though.
The biggest thing you're gonna notice
is that it's a little bit slower.
So you have to work a bit harder
when you're skating on synthetic ice.
The second thing is that your
skates get dull a lot faster.
My biggest recommendation is as long as
you have sharp skates,
you can do anything
that you can do on ice.
So I'm doing all kinds
of crazy moves here,
stop, starts, quick feet stuff.
You can all do those when you're skating.
Now I stumble a little bit here.
What I've noticed is that
the biggest difference,
when you're gonna feel that difference,
where it's a little bit slower,
is right when you start your stride
and right when your
stride's about to finish.
That's when you're really gonna notice
that increased friction
and where you're most likely to stumble.
Also, if your skates are
dull, you're gonna stumble,
and I'll show you that later in the clip.
Next up is stick handling.
Besides real ice, nothing beats
synthetic ice for stick handling.
The puck stays nice and flat,
and you can move it all around,
you can do quick hands,
all kinds of crazy moves,
and you have a nice, big area
to practice all kinds of different things.
As long as you have your skates on,
you can add that motion
to your stick handling
that you don't usually get
when you're stick handling at home.
Now a lot of times if
you're in running shoes,
you don't get the same motion,
so you have to learn something,
and then you have to learn it again
once you get on the ice with movement.
So that's a big advantage.
Here's passing.
This is a little drill
I call juggling pucks.
So I have the extreme
passer from HockeyShot.
I like to challenge myself,
so I found this is a
really good passing drill
to work on hand-eye
and getting two pucks
going at the same time.
Here I'm just doing the glide test again,
after a little bit of skating.
In the next clip, I'll
show you what it feels like
to try to skate on synthetic ice
after you already been skating for an hour
and your skates are dull.
Alright guys, that wraps up my review
of the synthetic ice form HockeyShot.
My overall opinion of the synthetic ice,
and this is coming from
really high expectations
because this is basically
a childhood dream,
to have a spot where I can
skate anytime I wanted.
So my overall opinion for
the HockeyShot synthetic ice,
stick handling, awesome,
shooting, awesome,
skating, it's great as long
as your skates are sharp.
The only thing that isn't the greatest
is that it does dull your
skates pretty quickly,
and then you have to sharpen them.
If your skates are sharp, it's amazing,
if they're dull, your slipping around,
so you can't get that same bite
and do the same moves
that you would on the ice.
One more thing to know about synthetic ice
is that it is expensive, however,
if we think about it from
a long term perspective,
like I was talking about earlier,
it really can be worth it.
If you're using this area for 10 years,
the amount of time you're
gonna spend in here,
the amount of fun you're gonna have,
the amount of memories you're gonna have,
and the amount of skill
you'll get from improving.
That much time working
on really specific stuff
with an awesome training
area, definitely worth it.
So if you have the space,
if you have the money,
I would say go for it.
Pick it up.
You're gonna love it,
as long as you use it on a regular basis.
And what hockey player wouldn't?
If you guys wanna pick
up some synthetic ice,
I got a link in the video description.
Check out HockeyShot,
and they'll set you up.
You have to do a quote first
because they have to determine
the size that you need
and the thickness of the synthetic ice,
and then they'll send you the price.
Thanks a lot for watching the videos guys.
If you want more videos
to improve your skills,
don't forget to subscribe to the channel.
We do new hockey videos every single week.
Thanks for watching the video,
I'll see you in the next one.
(rock music)
