I have coached at the college level with both men and women. Here is what I look for.
1. How hard do they compete.
2. Skating in all directions while facing the puck. Speed, mobility, agility.
3. How hard do they practice. (as an aside when I was coaching university men Gary Roberts practiced with us a few times coming back from an injury. He was the first in line for every drill. He always followed his pass, always went to the net and stopped, always went full speed. Our team was made up of former major junior players and he outworked, out listened and out good habited all of them. He tried to get better every practice. That is unusual as most players go thru the motions in pracitice.)
4. Game sense to not only be able to perform the How and What but have an understanding of the when, where and why.
5. Basic skills.
TomM
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I'm interested in starting an exchange of info tips from the college level coaches back to us FM midget aged coaches what, say 3 to 5 things, they are looking for in their recruitment of female hockey players and what they'd like to see us coaches trying to develop in their pre-college years.
I realize there are the basics that we most know what's being looked for (ie. skating, skills, the 'drive', etc) but looking for a little more in terms of specifics about each of these OR if there's specifics in, say, the player's VO2 max, max chinups, etc (in the realm of high performance fitness required at the college OR national team level) to things like being able to read the play for good, close support in DZ coverage. Tips that we can actually relay back to the player either during a drill, on the board or during team meetings in the form of saying "you what, if you do this, college coaches are actually looking for this and will definitely increase your chance of getting noticed".
There's a myriad of topics I'm sure so I'm hoping we can generate some great exchange of info.
One of my faves to to harp on the players to 'get their head up' ALL the time - ALL THE TIME. With and without the puck but specifically with the puck to enable play reading and developing options continually. To me, a player that can do this as easy as 'walking and talking', it makes for a great asset especially for those elite level teams down the road.
Look fwd to the rest.