How to hockey stop

Updated October 17, 2026

You can't skate hard until you can stop. Hockey Canada's coaching manual says stopping should be one of the first skills taught, for safety. Here's a step-by-step path: the snowplow, a one-foot stop, then the full two-foot hockey stop on both sides, with drills, fixes for the usual problems, and the backwards stop.

Before you start

• Gear up. Wear your helmet and gloves, and full gear if you can. The hockey equipment list has everything. You will fall while you learn, and that's normal.
• Learn to fall. Learn to Skate USA teaches falling to one side, not forward or straight back, tucking your chin so your head doesn't hit the ice, and not catching yourself with your hands.
• Learn to get up. Come up onto your knees, put one skate flat on the ice in front of you, then the other, and stand up slowly with your knees bent.
• Use the lines. Practice stopping at the painted lines, away from the boards. Hockey Canada suggests this so mistakes don't happen next to the boards.

Step 1: the snowplow stop

The snowplow teaches the feeling behind every stop: pressing an edge into the ice so it shaves off snow. Learn to Skate USA builds it in three stages.

1. At the boards. Hold on and push one skate out sideways so the inside edge scrapes the ice. Then the other skate.
2. Standing still. Push both heels out with your toes pointed slightly in, and scrape.
3. Moving. Glide slowly on two feet. Bend your knees and ankles. Push your heels out and press on your inside edges until you stop. Their cue is "glide, bend, slide."

Press hard enough to make snow, but don't dig in. Too much pressure and the blades stop shaving the ice. Too little and your feet can slide apart into the splits.

Next, do it one foot at a time. Hockey Canada calls this the one o'clock and eleven o'clock stop. Glide on two feet, turn your right heel out and its toe in, and push that skate out and down toward one o'clock on a clock face. Keep your weight on the ball of your foot and your knees bent. Then push your left skate toward eleven o'clock.

Step 2: the one-foot hockey stop

Now you turn sideways. Hockey Canada calls this the front-foot stop. It's a good way to feel the edge that does most of the work in a full hockey stop.

1. Glide forward at an easy speed with your knees bent.
2. Turn your hips and shoulders and snap your front skate sideways, at a right angle to the way you're going. If you turn to your left, your right skate is the front skate.
3. Put your weight on that front leg. Press its inside edge into the ice, on the front part of the blade, as you push the leg out.
4. Hold your other skate just off the ice, ready to go.

Do it at a slow glide until you can stop on one skate without wobbling, then a little faster.

Step 3: the two-foot hockey stop

1. Glide in. Both skates on the ice, knees bent, head up, two hands on the stick.
2. Don't stand up first. Hockey Canada warns against rising up before you turn, because then it's hard to press your blades into the ice.
3. Turn. Your shoulders lead and your hips and legs follow, until both skates are sideways to the way you were going. Start on your strong side.
4. Set your edges. Your front skate goes on its inside edge and your back skate on its outside edge, about shoulder-width apart. Spread your weight over both, with the front skate doing most of the stopping.
5. Press and push. Push your skates away from you in the direction you were going, pressing on the front part of the blades. Sink lower as you slow down.
6. Stay level. Head and shoulders level, chest up, eyes up the ice.
7. Finish ready. End in your stance, ready to go the other way. That's where a crossover start comes in.

Your weak side

Almost everyone has a side that feels natural and a side that feels awful. Learn the strong side first, then give the weak side extra time. In a game, you don't get to choose which way you need to stop.

• Go back to board scrapes and front-foot stops on your weak side, at slow speed.
• Do two weak-side stops for every strong-side stop until they feel closer.
• Skate down and back and stop facing the same side of the rink every time. Hockey Canada uses this in its warm-ups. It makes you stop on both sides without thinking about it.
• Expect it to feel slow and awkward for a while. That's part of learning it.

Drills

1. Board scrapes. Hold the boards and scrape one skate out and back. 10 times each leg.
2. Line stops. Snowplow at every line, down the ice and back. 2 times.
3. One o'clock, eleven o'clock. 5 stops on each foot.
4. Front-foot stops. 5 on each side at half speed.
5. Stop and go, same wall. Skate to the next line, stop facing the same side boards, skate back. 6 times.
6. Red light, green light. A coach or friend calls "green" to skate and "red" to stop. Not knowing when it's coming makes you react like in a game.
7. Snow piles. Stop on the same spot five times in a row. If you're building a pile of snow, your edges are working.

Troubleshooting

If your skates still chatter after you fix your technique, ask a skate shop to check your edges. The skate sharpening guide explains what they look at.

Skating backwards and the backwards stop

Backward skating starts with the stance. Hockey Canada describes it as sitting in a chair: knees bent, back straight, feet shoulder-width apart, head up and chest out, with your weight spread along both blades.

• Backward swizzles. Learn to Skate USA starts here. Toes together and knees bent, press your heels out so your skates slide apart, then pull your heels back together. Repeat.
• Backward C-cuts. Turn one heel out and push with the front part of the blade in a half circle, finishing with the toe. Bring that skate back beside the other. Keep your gliding skate right under your body. Switch feet.

The first backwards stop to learn is the V-stop:

1. Glide backward on two skates, about shoulder-width apart.
2. Turn your toes out and your heels in.
3. Lean slightly forward. That presses your inside edges into the ice.
4. Keep a slight bend in your knees and press out through the blades, letting your legs straighten as the stop finishes.
5. End in your stance, ready to move.

Hockey Canada's beginner practice plans start it at the boards: push away, glide backward, turn your toes out and lean slightly forward, 4 or 5 times. Then they play red light, green light skating backward. Once the V-stop is easy, coaches teach a one-foot backward stop that turns straight into a forward start.

When to ask a coach

If you've practiced for a few weeks and still spin out or fall on the same side, ask a coach to watch a few of your stops. Problems like weight in the wrong place are easy to see from the outside. If you're new to skating, a learn-to-skate class at your rink is a good way to get help. And if you ever hit your head and feel dizzy, sick, confused or get a headache, stop skating, tell an adult, and get checked by a doctor.

For days off the ice, Brudvig Hockey 2027 is a free 3-on-3 arcade hockey game you can play in a web browser, against the computer or a friend.