Off Ice Stick Handling Practice

Question
I have been practicing my stick handling off-ice at home and have one big question on one of my personal methods. I have an older stick I use during my off-ice practice and I have cut it about 3 to 4 inches shorter than one of my regular ice sticks. My logic did this to compensate for practicing on my feet versus being on my skates at the rink. The stick forces me to bend my knees, like I would on-ice. So, My main question is whether practicing with a shorter stick off-ice, that compensates for not being on my skates, a good idea or bad idea? Will it create bad stick handling habits? Would the shorter be useful as well for shooting practice off-ice? Or, should I forget the shorter stick idea for off-ice practice, all together? I have seen an improvement on-ice with my stick handling, but I wonder if this may, as mentioned above, give me bad habits? Thanks for your time!

Answer
Hello Thomas!

Good for you for making time to work on your skills!  It's the only way to significantly improve any skill -- PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

My answer to you is YES - cutting your stick down to be of same length and feel relative to you and the ice IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

If not you would have an adjustment every time you step onto the ice.   Simulating your ice stance IS A MUST...  adding any resistance that you remove is perfectly fine...  but stance manipulations only works if you are trying to CHANGE something!

So - NO you will not form bad habits with a stick that is "relatively" the same distance to surface of puck you are playing with!

Make sense?

Feel free to follow up.

Good luck with the puck!

Martial