It may seem obvious but I have to ask. If you are a fast sprinter will you also be a fast skater and vice versa. Or is there a balance? Leg speed and skating technique? I am talking about hockey. Any answers because mainly I want to work on speed and am wondering how much skating drills I would need. Thanks
The following comments are based on a sample size of 1 (me).
I had some buddies who were into inline skating and roller hockey in college. I was a bit as well (but not as much as they were). I was (am) a good skater, but most of them were faster than me. However, I could sprint faster than probably all of them. You definitely need good technique to skate fast.
Bottom line… there seems to be some carryover, but technique is very important to become an advanced skater, IMO.
I’m no expert on sating but it occurs to me that skating is probably more dependent on muscular strength whereas running has more to do with elastic recoil and the release of stored energy. I’m not saying that there is no correlation at all, and I suspect that a great skater will at least be a fairly fast runner, but ultimately I think that the most important factors in each respective discipline are probably different enough that a person will not be as fast of a runner as he is of a skater.
Cheers guys.