Dean,

Have you ever run practice sessions with teams just understanding triangle hockey in all zones of the ice ?
No team breakouts or systems , but just understanding the concept of playing triangles with support in all situations.

How about games ?

Games where you stress triangles as the theme of your on ice session as a mentor ?

RK

Good stuff from the "Hockey by Bauer" site:

http://www.hockeybybauer.com/about.html

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What's Different about "Hockey By Bauer"?

One of the comments we often hear when explaining our format is, "will anybody be teaching them anything?" Dave Peterson, former Minnesota high school and USA Olympic coach once said, "The ice is the best coach, it never says no." We believe the basic concepts of hockey are quite simple and the best way to learn them is by playing the game. Win the race to the puck, once you have the puck learn how to keep it, control it, protect it, find yourself time and space. If you don't have the puck, learn how to find open space so you'll get a pass or learn how to support a teammate and pick up a loose puck. Your successes are rewarded with puck possession, passes that turn into assists and scoring opportunities that turn into goals. When those concepts become engrained you have now developed that hockey sense that is so crucial to being a good player. We at Hockey by Bauer won't throw out the puck and drink coffee, but we will let the ice, and the game itself become the teacher as much as possible. There won't be a lot of long lectures and at times it may even look a bit chaotic, welcome to "rat hockey!"

What the Experts Say...

"I would tend to lean on letting them have fun and putting them in an environment where my drills have a game involved in it. Through those type of small games and how those kids do it will make them enjoy coming to the rink and looking forward to coming back."

-Mark Johnson, Head Coach Badger Women-2006 National Champions

"Everything is so organized and programmed these days that the kids don't have an opportunity to just be kids. It used to be the kids would do it themselves. They'd go down to the rink and play by themselves or get a pick-up game organized. They didn't have video games, DVD's or computers, or a coach telling them what to do. They played to occupy time."

-Don Lucia, head coach of Minnesota Gophers

"We can do a better job of ice utilization. I cringe when I see a team with 14 skaters out there using a full sheet of ice. Most of it is wasted. Practice time can be far more productive. Why not have 3 or 4 teams on the ice, especially at the mite & squirt level. Play cross-ice games where the kids are in smaller space and will learn skating and stick skills. Play shinny hockey-there would be a lot more development."

-Don Lucia, head coach of Minnesota Gophers

"Fact: for more than 50% of the ice time rented for games, the puck is not in play! That's right. If bantams or pee wees have an hour and a quarter they'd be hard pressed to play three 12-minute stop-time periods. Put a stop watch on the ref sometime in a youth game and you'll see he has his hand on the puck for about 52% of the ice time. Now, what kind of development is that?"

-Jack Blatherwick, author 'Overspeed Speed Training for Hockey'

"Everything that happens in full ice will happen in cross ice, only they will happen more often."

-Bill Beaney, Middlebury College (477 career wins, 8-D3 National Championships)

"We've realized in the last few years that you don't develop skills in youth players, playing games on a full sheet of ice. We need to get back to practicing more."

-Cory McNabb, Manager of Player Development Canadian Hockey Association

"The pee wee player handles the puck an average of 35 to 45 seconds a game on full ice. That's more than 100 games for an hour of quality puck time. If you want to be a carpenter and never use a saw, how good can you be?"

-George Kingston, Canadian Olympic Development Program

"I sometimes think we should put pucks on the ice, leave a couple of parents to supervise and the rest of us go in and drink coffee. The kids would love it. It's the parents who need the games. Well it's really not entertainment for the parents. It's suppose to be fun for the kids!"

-Ray Lalonde, Toronto Area Youth Hockey Coach

"Games are the least effective development tool & most expensive per minute of time on the ice. We continue to ignore the facts that playing more games & practicing occasionally is self-defeating & a contradiction to what we say we want for our children."

-Hal Tearse, USA Hockey & Minnesota Amateur Hockey

Lucky you Tom!

Here is the article plus one with an aspiring female New Zealand hockey player.

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Arab hockey boom: Emirates need more rinks to cope with increasing demand

MARTIN MERK, IIHF.COM, 31-07-11


ABU DHABI – There are several places where demand for hockey is increasing much faster than the rink capacities.

There are countries in colder regions with needs of more infrastructures. Last summer for example we reported about the situation in Iceland where, paradoxically, there’s not enough ice for the growing number of players and teams. But ice hockey is also flourishing in regions many people might not imagine it. For example: in the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf States.

Even though the temperature is hotter than 40°C (100°F) these days, there are quite some people who think about playing ice hockey despite the heat. Or one could say because of it. Winter sports have become trendy in the oil-rich country. Apart from four ice rinks, the Emirates also hit the headlines when a 22,500-square metre indoor ski resort opened in Dubai in 2005.

The International Ice Hockey Federation has hosted several events on the Arab peninsula, such as the Challenge Cup of Asia, or the recent Asian Hockey Development Camp in Abu Dhabi.

“Ice hockey has been growing rapidly in popularity in the Middle East,” said Jukka Tiikkaja, the IIHF’s Asian Sport Development Manager. “One main challenge is to find people to drive the grassroots programs rather than just focusing on national team activities.”

For a long time the United Arab Emirates, who became an IIHF member in 2001, haven’t been very active internationally although games have been played since the ‘70s. While the focus was first to build a national team, which participated in one IIHF World Championship Division III in 2010, the country’s hockey body founded a permanent national league in 2009 with two Arab and three expat teams in three cities.

The United Arab Emirates currently list 532 ice hockey players, including 40 female players. Four years ago there were only 195 players registered in the country. But the growth also brings problems with the existing infrastructure for ice sports.

“The United Arab Emirates are an ideal example of the possibilities you have when there are resources and, more importantly, people with enthusiasm and vision,” Tiikkaja said.

“Three years ago the focus was around the senior national team, and junior programs were virtually non-existent. This strategy has changed and it has had a remarkable impact with the demand exceeding the supply.”

For the players, teams and hockey schools that face problems getting ice time at the rinks there’s hope for change. The National reported recently that the government is set to sanction the construction of two new ice rinks in Abu Dhabi, the Emirati capital, to help satisfy growing interest in ice hockey and underline the national team’s ambitions to climb up the ladder in the IIHF World Championship program.

“We have been talking to the government about building two rinks at Zayed Sports City where the present one stands,” Mohamed Aref, the country’s ice hockey technical director, told the newspaper.

“We need more ice rinks and I believe that will happen. Right now we have one Olympic-sized venue in Dubai [at Dubai Mall], one in Al Ain and this one in Abu Dhabi. Just imagine if we get to 2015 with the same amount of rinks. By that time the sport will have grown even more. How would we cope with so many people?”

Aref believes that the increasing demand comes not only from the hockey schools and clubs founded in the last ten years, but also because of the success of the national team. Not many Arab athletes bring home medals and trophies from international sport events, but the ice hockey national team has won the Challenge Cup of Asia in 2009 and the bronze medals in the Premier Division of the 2011 Asian Winter Games.

“I had heard this is going to happen and that is unbelievable,” national team player Faisal Saeed said about the plans of building new rinks. “I’m so proud of how big ice hockey has become in my country and the structure we have now. However, we do need more rinks.

“There are a lot of kids waiting to play this sport, but we don’t have enough ice time for them. If we had more rinks, then we could really move the sport forward. We need to expand and I hope we do that.”

Now the Emirati want to look up to the top nations with the prospect of additional rinks. They think about an entry in the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship program for 2013. The first goal is to qualify for the Division III, but the dream is to become the first Arab team to challenge the traditional powerhouses from North America and Europe in the Top Division one day.

Prior to that, the Emirati Ice Hockey League will kick off its third season on 5th October with the same five teams, but there are talks about a sixth team in the future if such a team could be competitive.

While the UAE has been the most successful Arab nation in hockey so far, there are other countries from the Middle East that have discovered ice hockey.

Kuwait also started the game in the ‘80s and rejoined the IIHF in 2009 after a period of inactivity. Its national team has played in two Challenge Cups of Asia and in the Asian Winter Games and has won some games in these tournaments, although it couldn’t overcome its Arab rival from the UAE.

Kuwait has 229 players and two ice rinks. One of them hosted the Challenge Cup of Asia in April.

Ice hockey is a chance for many kids to try something new with a cool and modern flavour. Compared to sports that are more established in these countries, ranging from camel racing to football to water sports, it’s kind of a break from the standard pattern of the sport landscape.

Same as in the Emirates, the percentage of women and girls playing ice hockey is surprisingly high. Actually, Kuwait has the highest percentage of female participation among all 70 IIHF member nations with 37.1 per cent (85 out of 229 players) and also the UAE’s number of 7.5 per cent is higher than in most European top-tier countries where ice hockey used to have the image of being a sport for tough guys only.

In nations where ice hockey is something rather new and there’s no gender bias in the hockey family, it seems to be a different story and girls enjoy playing the sport same as boys do.

Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are the only IIHF members from the Arab peninsula (Morocco from North Africa is another Arab country in the IIHF), but ice hockey is in the fledgling stages in other countries of the Middle East as well.

The national team of Bahrain appeared on international ice for the first time in the 2011 Asian Winter Games, but the team was not able to cope with its opponents yet, conceding between 15 and 29 goals each game.

One year ago, Kuwait City hosted the first Gulf Ice Hockey Championship that included two new national teams, Saudi Arabia and Oman. The teams were also struggling with their more experienced opponents from Kuwait and the UAE, but Saudi Arabia won its first international hockey game, 3-1 against Oman.

Another Gulf state has avoided international hockey yet. Qatar had to cancel its participation in the Asian Winter Games in the last minute, but the country that was in the spotlight for its successful 2022 FIFA World Cup bid held its first national ice hockey championship last season. Qatar 1 became champion after defeating Sand Storm 5-2 in the final match. Qatar 2 and Desert Heat were the other teams in the league that included Qatari and expat players.

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And another interesting article with a New Zealand gal...


Kiwis on ice: NZL's Libby-Jean Hay competing in skills challenge

Paul Romanuk, IIHF.COM, 19-01-12


INNSBRUCK – Participants in the 2012 Youth Olympic Winter Games Hockey Skill Challenge event have come from far and wide to compete in Innsbruck. Likely none of them had as long a flight to Austria as Libby-Jean Hay of New Zealand, who will be competing in tonight’s final. IIHF.com’s Paul Romanuk caught up with Hay to discuss ice hockey in her native country.


New Zealand ice hockey, how does that happen?

(laughs) I actually don’t know myself, but we did make it here, myself and Callum (Burns-the New Zealand-born participant in the men’s event) also are in the top eight. New Zealand is a small country and ice hockey is not big, but it is getting a lot bigger, a lot of women players are coming in from inline hockey and they’ve made a big difference, they’re very skilled and it’s made New Zealand ice hockey stronger.

How did you get into it?

I got into it at about the age of ten, I did figure skating since I was three. I’m from a big family of seven and I have five brothers and they all play ice hockey, I watched them my whole life and so I decided to give it a go and here I am!

We’re pure New Zealanders. My oldest brother, who’s about 30 now, he started hockey when he was young and he loved it, and that’s how we got into it, one-by-one we started playing.

What do you love about the sport?

I love that it’s so fast, I like the aggressiveness and I love how it’s a team sport that’s exciting and fun.

Your favourite team?

I like the Detroit Red Wings, I saw them play and they won against the Canucks and I think they’re a really skilled team.

What’s the best thing about playing hockey in New Zealand?

It’s very different from all the other New Zealand sports, it’s not common and we get a lot of ice time (smiles).

And the worst thing?

That’s a hard question haha, I think maybe that there’s not enough rinks, and I’d like to be involved in more international competitions worldwide. There’s world championships but other competitions against other countries might be cool.

What’s your future? Are you just doing this for fun or do you want to get a scholarship and play in one of the leagues in North America.

That’s exactly what I want to do. I want to finish my schooling in New Zealand, I have one more year of school left, and I’m currently looking at some scholarships in the U.S. I would love to gain a scholarship and play in the U.S.

The full video interview will be available on IIHF’s Youtube channel on Friday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWLDJIPxaJg&hd=1

Great article RedWingFan! Thanks for making people aware of it!

Here it is...

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Teaching Your Brain How To Play Soccer

Via Dan Peterson, January 17, 2012


When describing what’s wrong with today’s youth soccer coaching, Michel Bruyninckx points to his head. “We need to stop thinking football is only a matter of the body,” the 59-year old Belgian Uefa A license coach and Standard Liège academy director recently told the BBC. “Skillfulness will only grow if we better understand the mental part of developing a player. Cognitive readiness, improved perception, better mastering of time and space in combination with perfect motor functioning.”

We’re not talking about dribbling around orange cones here. Bruyninckx’s approach, which he dubs “brain centered learning” borrows heavily from the constructivist theory of education that involves a total immersion of the student in the learning activity.

In fact, there are three components to the related concept of “brain based” teaching:

Orchestra immersion – the idea that the student must be thrown into the pool of the learning experience so that they are fully immersed in the experience.

Relaxed alertness – a way of providing a challenging environment for the student but not have them stressed out by the chance of error.

Active processing – the means by which a student can constantly process information in different ways so that it is ingrained in his neural pathways, allowing them to consolidate and internalize the new material.

This “training from the neck up” approach is certainly different than the traditional emphasis on technical skills and physical fitness. The brain seems to be the last frontier for sports training and others are starting to take note of it.

“I think that coaches either forget, or don’t even realise, that football is a hugely cognitive sport,” said the Uefa-A licence coach Kevin McGreskin in a recent Sports Illustrated story. “We’ve got to develop the players’ brains as well as their bodies but it’s much easier to see and measure the differences we make to a player’s physiology than we can with their cognitive attributes.”

At the Standard Liège facility outside of Brussels, Bruyninckx currently coaches about 68 players between the age of 12 and 19, who have been linked with first and second division Belgian clubs. If there was any question if his methods are effective, about 25% of the 100 or so players that he has coached have turned pro. By comparison, according to the Professional Footballers’ Association, of the 600 boys joining pro clubs at age 16, 500 are out of the game by age 21.

His training tactics try to force the players’ brains to constantly multitask so that in-game decision making can keep up with the pace of the game. ”You have to present new activities that players are not used to doing. If you repeat exercises too much the brain thinks it knows the answers,” Bruyninckx added. “By constantly challenging the brain and making use of its plasticity you discover a world that you thought was never available. Once the brain picks up the challenge you create new connections and gives remarkable results.”

The geometry of the game is stressed through most training exercises. Soccer is a game of constantly changing angles which need to be instantly analyzed and used before the opportunity closes. Finding these angles has to be a reaction from hours of practice since there is no time to search during a game.

“Football is an angular game and needs training of perception — both peripheral sight and split vision,” said Bruyninckx. “Straight, vertical playing increases the danger of losing the ball. If a team continuously plays the balls at angles at a very high speed it will be quite impossible to recover the ball. The team rhythm will be so high that your opponent will never get into the match.”

Certainly, brain-centered learning faces enormous inertia among the coaching establishment. Still, for those teams looking for the extra edge, the Bruyninckx method is gaining fans. “Michel’s methods and philosophy touch on the last frontier of developing world-class individuals on and off the field – the brain,” respected tennis coach Pete McCraw stated. “His methods transcend current learning frameworks and challenge traditional beliefs of athlete development in team sports. It is pioneering work, better still it has broad applications across many sporting disciplines.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3yBF9BDMhJc

Here is a comment I overheard after yesterday's U18 NTC (soccer) practice. See post:


John ran a great practice with the U18 National Training Centre (soccer) girls yesterday. These are girls who have been identified by the CSA as the best age-group players in southern Alberta and who are trying to gain a roster spot with the National U 18 team. (One of these girls is currently on the National U18 team.) There are several NTC's across the country in the large cities. I helped John coach this group a couple of years ago. The skill level and desire to compete is very high. It was very enjoyable and I love going to watch / help when my time allows...

John invited some of the best U 16 girls in the city as well as some top NTC U16 and U14 boys - plus a midfielder who was just named to Canada's U22 (male) team and is on the 2012 Olympic tryout roster. He had 27 players and 3 goalies in total - perfect numbers for nine teams of 3 players each!

He ran the "Time Machine" game.

This was some of the best soccer I have ever witnessed in person. They played for almost 90 minutes straight!

As they left the pitch, I overheard a couple of girls talking.

#1 "I feel so pumped after these games! I love it! I can hardly wait for our team practice tonight!"

#2 "Yeah me too! I love the Time Machine! I wish our coach knew these games and practiced with games. Now it sucks because you know we will doing the same boring thing. More drills and being yelled at and told what to do while we stand around, waiting to go."

#1 "Well at least we had fun here for the past two hours; let's go get the next practice over with..."


Hmmmmm.... coaches, reflect on your own practices.

How do players 'see' your practices or what do they truly think about your practices?

How would you "like" to participate in your own practice?

Kyle Woodlief’s Red Line Report

Gregg Drinnan, Taking Note, Feb 25 2012

Kyle Woodlief’s Red Line Report was posted Friday by USA TODAY. In it, he wonders about the lack of skilled North American forwards eligible for the NHL’s 2012 draft. Boy, ain’t that the truth. You need only watch the number of junior teams playing chip and chase to wonder just what is going on with that. Park a player in the neutral zone -- and I mean park him. Have a defenceman rifle the puck in his direction. The forward, who is standing still, tips the puck into the offensive zone. And then the other team repeats the exercise...

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European forwards outshine North Americans in skill:
Having just returned home from the Five Nations under-18 event in Finland, we have exactly four words: Thank God for Europe!

Kyle Woodlief, Red Line Report special to USA TODAY, Feb 24 2012


Sweden's Filip Forsberg is among the skilled European forwards dominating this draft.

And not because places like Panelia and Pori scream destination travel in mid-February.

No, it's because without Europe, there would not be a single skilled forward to watch in this entire draft class.

As we were watching the dynamic Swedish duo of Sebastian Collberg and Filip Forsberg dominate entire shifts and Finnish flash Teuvo Teravainen rip hellacious one-timers and Russian Anton Slepyshev dangle through crowds of overmatched defenders, we thought back to fond memories when North American forwards used to have puck skills. Ah, those were the good old days.

As we sat in the stands over in Finland, we looked over the first round of our list and started to realize it wasn't just that the American under-18 team was shockingly devoid of anything even remotely resembling a skilled puckhandler.

No, the drought extends to North America as well. In addition to the four Euros mentioned above, plus late-1993 Swede Pontus Aberg, Red Line's five highest-rated forwards skating in any league in North America are all European as well: Nail Yakupov, Alex Galchenyuk (though honestly, does anyone truly understand what nationality he is?) and Radek Faksa in the Ontario Hockey League; Mikhail Grigorenko in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League; and Zemgus Girgensons in the United States Hockey League.

In all, our top nine ranked forwards, and 11 of the 14 we have ranked in the first round, are all European. We don't have a single North American forward ranked in our top 20.

And sadly, when we go to games in places like Des Moines and Regina, that generally makes us want to gouge our eyes out with a fork.

We know everything in this business is cyclical, so this too shall pass. But right about now, this all leads us to one inescapable conclusion: There is an absolute pile of money to be made running a top-notch skills clinic anywhere on this continent.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/hockey/columnist/woodlief/story/2012-02-24/nhl-draft-red-line-report/53234152/1

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I will post further thoughts on this later - working on an article to share here. Heading to the rink now...

I have read a few things pertaining to eye movement and Australian Rules football. Seemed the superior players focused attention on open areas/uncontested areas of the field and lower skilled players fixated more on movement/busy areas.

What are everyone's thoughts on sports that carry over to a smarter hockey player?
(In my opinion, the players that I have coached who have played a good amount of basketball, have better game understanding and anticipation than the players I have coached who have played a good amount of soccer)

Quote by: RedWingFan

What are everyone's thoughts on sports that carry over to a smarter hockey player?
(In my opinion, the players that I have coached who have played a good amount of basketball, have better game understanding and anticipation than the players I have coached who have played a good amount of soccer)

Maybe, but the "laws of the game" are same in hockey, basketball and soccer. They all have 4 playing roles, you need to win space to score. To my experiense players who played only hockey are not so game intelligent than someone who has played some other team sport too.

Today we had only 5 forwards, 2 Ds and one goalie (It's spring break). We did (I think you can call it?) decision training.

- Nz regroup + scoring 2-0 + D shot from the point
1. D passes to one of two Fs who is open (when D is skating to puck i covered the other F)
2. Same situation but I told to Ds that I will this time try to read where they are passing the puck, so they should make fake pass or no look pass.


Edit:
I'm so slow with my english typing

The Importance of Speed of Mind in Hockey

Alan Bass, NHL Blogger, “The Psychology of Hockey”, Feb 11 2012


If you look at some of the best players in the NHL today – Sidney Crosby, Pavel Datsyuk, Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Evgeni Malkin, Steven Stamkos, and more – there is a common thread between their skill sets. Each of these players has differing techniques they use that utilize their strengths and hide their weaknesses, yet each of them manage to flaunt their talents because of their ability to make split-second decisions – “hockey sense”, as it is known in the hockey world. In fact, Wayne Gretzky will be the first to tell you that he was far from the most talented player when he was tearing up the NHL record book in the 1980s and 1990s. The reason he was successful is because he had an uncanny ability to anticipate the play and know exactly what each of the other nine players on the ice would do in any given situation. As he famously said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

Anatoli Tarasov, the famous Soviet Coach (known as the architect of the powerhouse Soviet hockey teams in the 1960s and ’70s) had a famous saying: “Speed of hand, speed of foot, speed of mind. The most important of these is speed of mind. Teach it.”

Logically, this would make sense. You could be the fastest skater in the world, have a shot that hits the back of the net nine times out of ten, and an uncanny ability to pass the puck. But if you are unaware of the flow of the game, how a situation will unfold, or even where you should be positionally at all times, those talents will be useless, just as the valedictorian of Harvard Business School needs an awareness of the business world and its trends or his 4.0 GPA will be for naught.

Tarasov’s hockey teams would train for endless hours utilizing drills that allowed players to practice their creativity and develop their decision-making. In addition, players understood that at all times, the puck has the ability to move faster than any player on the ice. This led to his famed system consisting of short, quick, accurate passes, causing opponents to be left spinning around, looking for where the puck might be next. Not only were players expected to have this ability to connect with each other on a constant basis, but they were also expected to have such quick decision-making abilities that they would know what they wanted to do with the puck before they even received a pass. Tarasov helped accomplish this desired goal by creating drills that forced players to anticipate the play before it happened.

One drill he used consistently was a three-on-three rush in which players were not allowed to hold the puck for more than two seconds. This caused them not only to pass the puck, but to predict where each player would be before he even received the initial pass. Another drill he used was a three-on-three in the offensive zone with a wild card player standing stationary at the blue line. Only the team with the puck could use that player, creating almost a 4-on-3 advantage. If there was a turnover, the defensive team had to get the puck back to the wild card in order to switch and become the offensive team. Drills such as these help to stimulate players’ minds by creating a common goal (maintain control of the puck and score) while also launching enough spontaneity into the drill to force players to think outside the box.

Teaching hockey players is much more than simply standing in front of a white board and drawing X’s and O’s. It’s about creating an environment where players have the ability to both make mistakes and succeed creatively. Why use two players in a drill when you can force more creative plays with three? Why use the full ice when you can put cones in certain areas and direct the play as such? By utilizing creativity and forcing players to develop this speed of mind, they can develop even more efficiently and have smarter, more able hockey minds.

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I spend LOTS of time on 1 v 1 first (Igor's study = 1 v 1 occurs 45% of the time in a game) then progress to 2 v 1 / 1 v 2 and 2 v 2. I will eventually work up to 3 v 3 once the other situational building blocks have been put in place. I rarely, if ever, get to 4 v 4 or more in the skill academy setting. I might add a joker on offense to create 4 v 3's...

I would also add that you need to create a positive environment where the players are encouraged to fall over, make mistakes, etc. and then learn from it; as that is how most people learn! Kids shouldn't get yelled at for making honest mistakes or trying something. Yes, they need to be held accountable, but in the proper way. Once the players understand you (the coach) care about them as individual people and are working with them, the trust and respect factor is established.

"They don't care about how much you know until the know how much you care."

This is a sacred element - use this relationship wisely coaches!

Quote by: hockeygod[p
Coaches, how else do you or could you train "speed of mind"?
[/p]

I've been playing around with idea that it is better to film SAGs than actual games, at least with junior/youth players.
Here's some thoughts why;

• it is good way to demonstrate 4 playing roles in action. from 1v1 to 2v2 (and 3v3)
  
• you can control the game by themes and rules to help you to teach specific aspects of individiual tactics and prioritys of the game.
  
• you have also some control over transition situations.
  

Coaches: Are You Using Your Defensemen Correctly?

Alan Bass • "The Psychology of Hockey" • Hockey Buzz..com, February 25, 2012


Often, a key determinant of what position a player chooses is his handedness – whether he shoots right or left. A player’s handedness also affects how a coach uses him in various situations, such as on the power play or penalty kill, at the end of a game with an extra attacker, in a four-on-four situation, or simply at even strength. Other factors can come into play as well, including what system is used (e.g. an umbrella formation on the power play results in a lot of one-timers and quick shots, forcing a coach to play many players on their off-wing, in order to maximize the accuracy of shots).

There is no definitive answer or proof as to whether or not a player should be played on his off-hand, specifically when it comes to defensemen. But a recent study by Timothy McCarthy of USA Hockey and Vikkie McCarthy of Austin Peay State University gives some evidence to the benefits of a defenseman playing on his off-hand, specifically in offensive situations. The study looks at five main scenarios that occur within the context of every hockey game: puck containment (keeping the puck in the offensive zone), D-to-D pass, and a one-timer shot within the offensive zone. In the defensive zone, the researchers looked at puck control and pass success in the context of a breakout. Each of these five scenarios were analyzed on a player’s on-hand and off-hand.

The researchers conducted their experiment with 10 hockey defensemen ages 14 to 16. They observed these ten players in the aforementioned situations six times, resulting in 540 observations.

The results, although not staggering, were intriguing, to say the least. Below is the chart they published, showing the average success percentage in each offensive scenario:

____________With On Hand___With Off Hand
Puck Containment__68%_______72%
D-to-D Pass_______82%_______90%
One-Timer Shot____58%_______90%

All of these differences were “significant” (in psychological terms, “significance” means there is a distinct difference between the groups tested, and the difference is most likely not by chance). Defensively, these are the statistics reported by the researchers:

________________With On Hand___With Off Hand
Puck Control Strong Side___78%________67%
Puck Control Weak Side___83%_________83%
Pass Success Strong Side__94%_________92%
Pass Success Weak Side___92%_________92%

These differences were not significant, so most likely they happened by chance.

What is interesting with these statistics is that in the offensive zone, the position that a defenseman was playing based on his handedness made a great difference, while in the defensive zone, it did not seem to matter. The results for the offensive zone are logical, as if you are playing on your off-hand (e.g. left-handed defenseman playing on the right side of the ice), it is much easier to perform all three of these tasks. If the puck is being cleared up the boards, you are going to use your entire body to back into and hug the boards if you are playing on your off-hand. However, if you are playing on your on-hand, you are going to use just your stick, leading to more pucks bouncing over your stick and over the blue line. If you are passing D-to-D, the distance between the two defensemen’s sticks and the angle at which the pass is occurring will be much more favorable if both players are on their off-hand. With regards to the one-timer, coaches already understand the importance of a player being on their off-hand, as it creates a much easier atmosphere to release a quick shot, both in terms of the angle of the pass being received and the positioning needed to redirect the puck toward the net.

Although psychological studies do not ever give “proof” to anything, there is clearly enough evidence in the context of this study to give a second look to each of these scenarios and how players are positioning themselves. If, by simply placing players on their off-hand, you can prevent five more pucks from exiting the zone, connect on ten more one-timers, or prevent 15 errant blue line passes from occurring during the course of a game, mistakes can easily be prevented and more goals can be scored with just a simple change in strategy.

Empower your creative instincts this summer

Jack Blatherwick, Let’s Play Hockey, March 22 2012


“Empower your players. They have to make instantaneous decisions on the field. We coaches can’t make those decisions for them in games … and we shouldn’t. We must let them make mistakes and learn. Brain scientists tell us that the more we correct players and tell them what NOT to do, the more we lose creativity. Development depends on how well they learn to read the game. Make suggestions later. Encourage players to try new attacks, but don’t tell them what NOT to do.”
— Jürgen Klinsmann, U.S. Soccer Coach on developing ‘field sense.’

Rink sense, vision, read-react decisions, creativity, confidence, poise: These are the highest priorities for success in hockey – more than skating, shooting, stickhandling, passing, receiving, strength, speed or acceleration. Of course the secondary list is important, but training for instantaneous mental skills is under-coached – and negatively impacted by over-emphasis on systems featuring mistake-free, rigid, defense-minded game plans.

Why do I bring this up at the end of the season rather than at the beginning? Because I have no confidence that advice from the leading soccer coach in the world will change youth coaches in hockey or soccer. Winning each game has become too important to employ a fun, relaxed, trial-and-error approach to development in the U.S. Therefore, we are not promoting enough offensive geniuses for the large number of participants and world-class facilities in our country. After all, in a recent poll by The Hockey News, American NHL players believed only six Americans rank in the top 50.

Expert TV commentators in playoff games will not point you in the right direction as you plan for summer development. They sound like broken records, “Hit. Hit. Hit. Hit. Team A has to be more physical this period. They must establish a physical presence. Finish checks. Take the body. Count the hits (not the creative passes). Don’t get too cute. Don’t make turnovers. Don’t over-pass. Dump it in deep. Don’t get fancy.”

Of course, playing the body is important, and by playoff time, you must avoid mistakes, play solid defense and finish checks in the D-zone. But we’re talking about summer programs to develop offensive playmaking abilities. So, model your summer training after brilliant playmakers like Wayne Gretzky or the Sedin twins.

Unfortunately, they aren’t doing commentary on TV, but you can bet they wouldn’t advise you to hit more than you pass this summer? Real experts – those who have done a lot of research on learning – recommend unstructured scrimmage games to develop rink sense, vision, read-react decisions and poise. This is hockey without a scoreboard, without constant warnings from coaches about mistakes – hockey with thousands of quick decisions, trial-and-error, relaxed fun and plenty of mistakes.

Don’t pay for structure this summer. You get too much of that in the winter. Shoot pucks on your own; stickhandle; work on skating off the ice; play other active sports. Keep it simple, fun, and constructive.

Save money and improve your game. Minimally-structured, fast-paced scrimmages are hard to beat. Volunteers can run these. Get two different colored jerseys so there is lots of passing. Two goalies are important. Leave the scoreboard off and compete for pride and prestige.

Herb Brooks would say, “The only mistakes that matter are mistakes of omission.”

Try anything. Pavel Datsyuk would

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For the last two weeks with my Grade 8 class, we had them 'draft' 5 equal teams and we 'scrimmage' 6 vs 6 (or 6 vs 5 or whatever if kids are missing that day) full ice. We have different coloured pinnies to keep things organized. As a 'shinny' session, we put out minimal rules. We don't have goalies and don't use shooter tutors. All the teams get on ONE bench and move up accordingly as others come off. We play for 30+ minutes in a 55 minute session. Lots of creativity and problem solving and accountability. We have kids at all levels - Bantam AAA, Bantam AA, Tier 1-5 bantam / midget, 3 female Bantam AAA, 2 ringette girls, and a few kid who this is their first or second year of skating / hockey. The kids LOVE IT - including those with less skill - as they feel like they are a part of a 'team' and are involved in the games.

The basic Rules of Engagement (ROE):

1) No offsides. Play it like a game - otherwise the offending team gives up the puck to the other team. If a goal is scored on an offside, it doesn't count and is a turnover.

2) You can score from anywhere in the offensive zone. (You can add other discriminators if you want... add two open nets in each end; can only score on the backhand; must be a 'clean' goal - only hit mesh - not posts, crossbar or not be along the ice - has to be in the air, etc.)

3) It is a transition game so when you score, you dig the puck out and attack the opposite net QUICKLY!

4) Team that is scored on, SPRINTS to the one bench (no gliding or STOP! Everybody out to do 10/10 then 20/20 pushups/situps! Every time it happens, we stop them. After 3 times, they bust their asses to the bench!)

5) New team jumps on IMMEDIATELY when a goal is scored - no waiting for the other team to come off.

6) Kids are responsible to keep track of how many goals they score. Captains on each team are responsible to gather the totals and bring it to the coach at the end. Coach keeps track too... if there are any discrepancies, 10/10, etc! Coach is ALWAYS right. Deal with it. Just like an official, no arguments, no discussion, no negotiation. Zip it and do the pushups / situps!

7) Integrity Rule: We watch kids at random perform their 10/10, etc. If we count less than the required amount, everyone does 20/20 again... and we will keep doing it if we catch 'cheaters'. The kids have learned to add 2-3 extra on both the pushup / situp side... just to make sure! (The teacher did a piece on Integrity and what it means in class that I forwarded to him as well. It is amazing to see the difference in these kids since this was introduced two weeks ago!)

Unlike Jack, I believe in keeping score and holding kids accountable as 'life' tends to keep score itself and I believe we are here to help kids prepare for that inevitability (kids keep track of the score anyways - humans are naturally!) That said, I would love to see 'less structure' and see opportunities presented to kids where they can just 'play' without adults controlling things. However, as an instructor I don't get paid to 'do nuttin' in school' (!!!!) but I remember how great those days were on the outdoor rink... with 40 kids playing... all ages and skills... you learned to keep your head up and compete or you wouldn't ever get the puck! This is as close as it will get in a school program!

"The Game is the best teacher of The Game!"

Filip, it is always good to read the comments of another coach and great to have another active member on this discussion board.
It sounds like you are doing a lot of really good things already when I read what you did your last practice.

It is important to avoid line-ups except for recovery from high tempo activities. Your space is limited so you have to create areas for practice stations and you have done that. There are more ways to divide the ice into three areas such as from the goal line to the far blue line with one team on each half and the third group doing having one zone at the end.

If you search Dukla on this site you can see many of the activities I did in Jihlava two summers ago. We divided the rink into 4 areas and did skill drills and SAG’s in these areas.

Play keepaway and SAG with skill rules or rules that reduce time with the puck. Also play multi-puck games or games with different kinds of balls and pucks to challenge the nervous system. i.e. a football and a puck at the same time with the rule that you can only use your feet with the football (soccer ball) and stick or feet with the puck (or a hockey ball etc.)

Try to keep everyone active as much as possible. When I had 60 students in a small gym at the same time I would make 12 teams of 5 who practiced the skill together and then we played tournaments with 6 games going on at the same time in small areas with a modified rule that used the skill we just worked on; i.e. if it was volleyball and we just worked on the forearm pass then the game only allowed forearm passes and there was a rope instead of nets the entire length of the gym and 6 small cross gym courts. http://www.hockeycoachingabcs.com/filemgmt/index.php?id=43 is a link that shows a few classes.

Good luck with your practices.

Despite recent scandals, good coaches should be praised

Scott Russell, CBC Sports, March 22, 2012


The coaching profession has taken a beating this year.

It seems like the only headlines that the mentors of sport are making are frightening testaments to the crimes that a small minority commit when they find themselves in control of what happens to their charges on the field of play.

Witness the abhorrent abuses perpetrated by former junior hockey coach Graham James. A similar story of shame was foisted on Penn State University by Jerry Sandusky, and his negligent boss, the late Joe Paterno.

The latest outrage has seen three NFL coaches banned because they were encouraging bounty hunting on star players and tampering with the health and well being of highly paid athletes.

These are dark days for anybody who is proud to call him or herself a coach.

But it shouldn't be that way.

For each of these outriders there are literally tens of thousands of great coaches out there who give tremendously of themselves and expect very little in return. The bottom line is that we, as North Americans, and Canadians in particular, undervalue those who have a leadership role as educators in our sporting system.

I'm not referring to the highly paid bench bosses in professional sport but rather to the coaches of young people in countless minor clubs and the eminently qualified trainers who are ensuring that the Canadian high performance sports system succeeds.

"Factually speaking the majority of coaches in Canada are volunteers with an enormous expectation that they will conduct themselves ethically, responsibly and competently," says Wayne Parro, the executive director of Coaches of Canada.

His organization advocates for the betterment of the coaching profession in this country. Simply said, he's tired of the majority of coaches in Canada getting little or no pay and credit for what they do.

"Athletes and coaches are the core principals of the sport system," Parro contends. "We rightfully idolize the athletes, but the coaches are always in the background."

This is the truth.

Coaches rarely mentioned

While Own the Podium has continued to succeed and Canadian athletes find themselves in the winner's circle more frequently in both winter and summer sport, the coaches who do much of the groundwork are rarely mentioned when it comes time to dole out the accolades.

And so while Devon Kershaw, Alex Harvey and Len Valjas have had breakout seasons in World Cup cross country skiing, coach Justin Wadsworth remains largely anonymous. Kershaw himself is quick to credit Wadsworth with much of the success he's enjoyed.

"Justin has developed a much more professional approach to what we do," Kershaw said from the World Cup final in Sweden. "Our program has blossomed under his guidance."

The same could be said of swim coaches Randy Bennett and Tom Johnson, who have nurtured Ryan Cochrane and Brent Hayden, respectively, into stars in one of the deepest and most competitive sports in the world.

A disturbing side effect of the indiscretions committed by coaches like Graham James, Jerry Sandusky and Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints, is that we all begin to wonder who is it that we're entrusting with our young people's well being? Are we handing them over to coaches with a hidden agenda who are unprepared to deal with them responsibly and humanely?

"Like any profession there are bad apples. I would like to believe that generally people understand this notion and while we are appalled by their actions, they are isolated cases," Parro said.

"We are starting to do a better job of promoting the value that coaches bring to society and how the majority enrich the lives of their athletes. I think if we could find a way to promote this more often, we will keep good people in coaching longer."

Amen to that.

Good coaches are about more than winning games and races. They also shoulder the responsibility of instilling good values in the athletes who are influenced by them. Like it or not, that's the way it is.

"Coaches play an enormous role in the development of youth," Parro stresses.

"There have been studies indicating that when youth are asked about the most important influences in their lives, coaches always rank high on the list regardless of the level of sport in which they participated. We believe that sport has the power to keep youth focused on positive activity and to keep them out of trouble. Coaches are the key implementers of programming that fulfills this prophecy."

If that's the case, it's up to Canadians to pay attention to what coaches do and to honestly value their successes on a daily basis.

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/scottrussell/2012/03/despite-recent-scandals-good-coaches-should-be-praised.html

Dean in pro hockey you play so many games that the only time you really practice is in training camp. You can't tire players out in game day skates; so too many competitive drills and games would be counter productive. When you have a few days off you can add competition but most of the time you want to make sure everyone understands their role in team play.

College or AA-AAA, high school is a different animal and you should have a lot of competition because you only play a few games a week. Major junior is the same as the NHL with 3-4 games a week and you can't ask too much in practice because 48 hours is needed to recover from a really hard work out.

So it is important to have a lot of competition in skill academies like you and John run because the competition gives meaning to the activities that you are doing but the more league games the players have each week the more you have to tone down high intensity practice. You need energy for the league games.

Most players now are done for the season and the summer programs should have the kind of competition you are talking about to increase intensity and teach the players to do things at game speed.