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FRIDAY 19 FEBRUARY, 2010 | 
Skate coach gives locals edge
by Steffany Hanlen |
 View the Full Langley Advance Article Here
Steffany Hanlen helped teenaged skaters find their form at the Langley Events Centre.
Over the 14 years from 1991 to 2005, Steffany Hanlen worked full time to help notable National Hockey Leaguers improve their skating strides.
Late last month, the Langley resident took time out from her busy schedule to work with emerging young players much closer to home.
Hanlen, a skating instructor, mental performance coach for elite athletes and successful business people, and the founder of Quantum Speed (www.quantumspeed.ca) was on the Langley Events Centre ice, lending her expertise to WHL-drafted players.
Hanlen has worked with Olympians as well as NHL players across Canada and the United States. She became the NHL's only paid female skating coach under contract, first with the Edmonton Oilers from 1991 to 2000, helping the likes of Ryan Smythe, Doug Weight, Kelly Buchburger, and Todd Marchant.
"I left Edmonton when Glen Sather went to New York," Hanlen said.
After her departure from Edmonton, Hanlen moved on to work with St. Louis Blues players from 2000 to 2005.
Hanlen said she didn't have to break any gender barriers while training professional hockey players.
"I wasn't looking for a date," she said, laughing. "I was the strength and conditioning coach, initially, and I taught power skating afterwards. Because I had already gained that credibility, the players treated me with a lot of respect."
Having said that, Hanlen added that pro players are "very unforgiving when it comes to what you know and what you are able to do.
"So what I try to do is figure out, from a bio-mechanics standpoint, what is the most efficient style for each guy," she said. "I don't teach a program. I'll take the four guys, for example, who are out here [at the LEC] and each guy will have different body types - leg length, body position - and ask each of them what position they play, and I'll speak to them in that language."
At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, Hanlen served as a mental performance coach for two-time world silver medalists and five-time Canadian champions Marie France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, marking the first time ever that a performance coach had been accredited by the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and allowed to accompany athletes.
Growing up in Edmonton, Hanlen had, mainly, a figure skating background. She said she was blessed at an early age to be taught in "the cross-training world."
The bitterly cold winters in Edmonton helped a great deal, also. Hanlen learned her trade by skating the miles on outdoor ice.
"There's nothing like it," she said regarding outdoor skating surfaces.
Hanlen stresses explosiveness and, just as importantly, body awareness: "Knowing where you are on the ice at all times and being able to control your body."
"I am basically a bio-mechanist," she explained. "I study the science of how the body works, so when Wayne Gretzky can get to where he needs to get to, he doesn't have to be a pretty skater."
Ask Hanlen her age, and she'll quip, "I'm old. That's why I mentor young coaches, because they have the legs."
News for Monday 15 February, 2010
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