DIY Stickhandling Training Aids - "Dangler"

Remember the commercially available stickhandling training aids I talked about before?  Well, here's the first set of instructions on how to make your own.  I'm going to use 3/4" PVC pipe for mine, but there are numerous YouTube videos out there showing you how to make versions out of wood, broken hockey sticks, old pucks, and more.  In fact, my first set (that I still use) are made of scrap wood and a dowel bought at Wally World or any craft store.  I describe it in detail, and how to build one in another post here on DIY Hockey.

If you only have 90 degree elbows laying around, you can make a usable version, as shown in this picture.  It's kind of easy to tip over though because of the design of the legs.  It's simple to improve on it.



 First, replace the bottom 90 degree elbow with a "T" joint, and by adding short legs on each side the stability is much better.  Here's a photo of one of the "T" legs, painted but not attached.




The picture is rotated, sorry about that.  The short white piece at the top is a 1" long piece of PVC pipe, and the two side legs are 3" long pieces of the same.  I've found that by using the 1" length connector between the "T" and the 90 degree elbow above, you have enough room for a stickhandling ball to pass beneath.  Perfect.

One bonus is that by making several of the "T" foot sections, I could configure this pretty much any way I could imagine.  Add a "T" joint to the end of the crossbar, and you can add another straight piece, like so.



You can also vary the length of the top bar to change the difficulty of drills with the dangler.  Watch the video below to see what I mean.

Instead of a "T" joint, you could add 45 or 90 degree elbows to create a V or U shaped dangler.



You can use PVC adhesive to permanently fix the feet and just press fit everything else together, or you could treat everything like one giant tinkertoy set and build to suit.  It takes seconds, and is light enough that a small bag could carry a lot of pieces to use.

I still recommend the cheap spray paint though.  Because spray paint.  I went to WalMart this morning and looked through their paint section.  They were out of the red, so I got two cans of flat black for less than a dollar each.  Here's what my PVC danglers look like after a coat of paint, I think they look pretty good.



Here's a video showing some nice drills you can do with a "dangler" stickhandling aid.



If you do just ten minutes of this every day, you'll get better faster than you think.  And for proof, take video of yourself before and after!