WHY PHD?
PHD's synthetic ice creates more friction making it more difficult on which to skate, thus making the player work harder and also skate faster upon returning to real ice!
Real ice is forgiving.  One MUST skate properly on synthetic ice and therefore the player will develop a technically better skating stride.
You can shoot, stick handle and pass on synthetic ice just like real ice.
It's a less expensive alternative to real ice.
We are able to supply even more convenient training times than real ice rinks.
Training Aids available such as weighted pucks, shooting targets, radar gun, Pugi Pucks (over-sized pucks), sponge pucks for shot blocking, etc. 
Dry land training on site.
Immediate Video Analysis and feedback.
Skate Sharpening 
Superb Skills Training from our Professionals or Open Practice Time.

At Progressive Hockey Development on the synthetic ice, we employ the our own Isolation and Progression Method of training, which is a series of drills that first isolates a specific skill technique, practices it, then progresses into another skill and then another and finally puts all the skills to work together.  

Players can improve shooting, passing, stick-handling, puck protection, shot blocking, angling, checking, breakaways, and skating on our synthetic ice.

We have trained players from these fine area hockey clubs thus far:

Washington Little Capitals, Virginia Statesmen, Reston Raiders, Hershey Jr. Bears, Central Penn Panthers, Hagerstown Bulldogs, Northern Virginia Ice Dogs, Prince Williams Panthers, Ashburn Xtreme, Virginia Wild, Montgomery Blue Devils, Washington Pride, Philadelphia Jr. Flyers, Navy Hockey, Tri-City Eagles, Metro Maple Leafs, Richmond Royals, River Rats, Frederick Fury

PLUS, goalies from Union College, University of Rhode Island, Slippery Rock University, and area high schools such as Bullis, Hayfield and others!

We are taking appointments for individual and small group lessons on the synthetic ice surface every day of the week!

Click here to view our monthly schedule.

 

A Word About Training on Synthetic Ice

Synthetic ice has ice-like response in just about every way.  You skate on it just like normal ice and you can perform all the strides and the slides you would on regular ice.  Synthetic ice creates more friction, so skating is a bit more difficult and requires proper fundamental skating technique, but this is an excellent attribute for conditioning and learning proper skills.  Sliding is also more difficult because of the friction, so again, synthetic ice training will make you push harder into slides and into lateral movement making it superb for conditioning and practice.  On Progressive Hockey Development's synthetic ice, we practice with the goalies every skill and drill that we would perform on real ice and we get the same, if not better results!  Training on synthetic ice and then going onto real ice is an advantage because it makes real ice that much easier to work with.

Synthetic ice is less expensive to maintain and therefore allows for a less expensive training alternative.  Synthetic ice really gives you more for your money.

After a few hours on the synthetic ice, our goalies find that their inside edges of their skates dull.  We have also found it easier to skate on synthetic ice with sharp skates.  It is suggested that goalies get their skates sharpened before they train on synthetic ice and also before returning to the real deal.

-Coach Hersh

PHD's entire facility is based on one of the key premises of RAPID skill development:

Confined Space