Wayne Gretsky & Mark Messier give you Hockey Tips

As you can tell with this post I'm still answering the complaints from hockey fans in my inbox, and to show them just how much I'm dedicated to bringing hockey tips and workouts to this site, I have advice from two Canadians who made hockey what it is in the United States. That's in a game populated by foreigners but popular in the United States, I can't get any American voice on hockey. Hopefully articles like this and hockey's fantastic showing in HD will spread the game in the U.S. To get started here are a couple tips from the greats:

Wayne Gretzky on passing

"There are two primary kinds of passes," the Great One explains. "One is solid and hard, and the other is known as the feather. If the player you are passing to is standing still, use the firm pass. And if he's going at a good rate of speed, use the feather, and make sure you get it out ahead of him so he can skate into it."

Mark Messier on face-offs

"A centerman should always watch the linesman's hands when the puck is about to be dropped [on any face-off]," says the perennial All-Star. "Forget about the other player, but keep your eyes on the linesman because he's the one who actually has the puck. In the defensive zone, the best thing to do is try and adjust to what your opponent is doing. Read him. Look at his eyes, where his stick is facing, how his body is turned, how he's holding the stick, and where he's telling his teammates to line up. All that should give you some idea of what he is going to do with the puck, whether he's going to shoot off the draw, pass the puck to one of his defensemen behind him, or over to one of his wingers. And then you should react accordingly.

[ More at Dummies.com via Hockey Player Tips]