By Laura Warner
The sweep check is pretty sweet… but it’s tricky. I can still remember the first time I did a successful sweep check at ringette camp.
Check out Team Canada Ringette star Colleen Hagan doing a wicked demo of it. But when you do, notice the fine points:
- She is channelling using perfect gap control. Notice that she stays a stick length ahead of the forward almost the whole time.
- To stay ahead of the forward, Colleen uses her fantastic backward skating and keeps her feet moving.
- Notice her discipline! Colleen’s goal is to stay between the forward and the net, giving her nothing to shoot at. She only does the sweep check at the very last moment. The check is the ‘icing’ or bonus. The cake is channelling the forward wide of the net. If Colleen had tried to check the forward earlier, she would have gotten beat and given up a scoring chance.
Watch this video clip:
Practice the sweep check in practice whenever you’re working on your channelling.
