Book Review - Laura Stamm's Power Skating

(Second Edition)

Published by Leisure Press, ISBN 0-88011-331-6

As can be seen from the cover page, this is an ice hockey book, so you may think it a little strange that I'm reviewing this book on an inline skating page.  I bought the book because a number of websites recommended it for inline hockey, saying that the techniques from the book were very transferable to inline skating.

The book's purpose is defined in the preface - to teach hockey players how to skate properly and effectively.  Laura Stamm's philosophy here is to teach powerful skating with balance, agility, and mobility.  Skating is too often ignored as a skill, and according to her it is perhaps one of the most important skills there is in hockey.

The book is 244 pages, spread over 12 chapters.  Each chapter is well laid out, with a clearly defined goal, and is filled with drills and exercises to help train toward that goal.  Each drill or skill is broken down into simple steps that make learning the steps much easier, and help in perfecting that particular skill.  Many of the broken-down steps have separate exercises to help you improve that particular step in the skill being taught.  At the end of each of the sections laying out some of the more complex skills is a "Points to Remember" paragraph, used to re-iterate the important items from the drill.

The text is well written, reads easily, and contains plenty of black and white photographs to illustrate what the author is describing.  Often photographs or drawings are shown in a series of time-lapse shots to show the flow of action.  The photographs are complemented with illustrations and simple drawings that serve the author's purpose very well.  Some of the drawings show the track of skates in the ice for a particular exercise - these are clear and very useful in showing what is or should be happening.

At least one of the ice techniques in the book may not transfer so well from ice - the T-stop being an example.  The book teaches a version of the ice T-stop that has the skate stopping you cutting the ice with an outside edge.  I haven't seen anyone drag their inline stopping foot using an outside edge to stop - everyone seems to use the inside edge, and I suspect that this would be difficult or impossible to do because of the way our urethane wheels interact with the hard surfaces we skate on.

Another difference is that ice hockey skates tend to have a significant amount of rockering, and this can only be partially emulated by wheel rockering, as described at the end of this review.  This has an effect on the way moves are described and the weighting applied to skates.  As most ice hockey skates have only a very slight curve on the main part of the blade, this translates to a weight shift rather than rocking the skate.  As a result the book is still relatively accurate when applied to inline skates.

My hockey experience is limited, but I was really impressed with the book overall.  From the inline skating experience I have, and the exercises I've spent time on from the book, I can really see the benefit of this book.  Each exercise has the immediate feel of sensible training that will benefit your skating.  I would rate this book as an essential buy if you are serious about increasing your skating skills, even if not for hockey.

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