Steve,

Half-ice should be plenty of room for 11 players. The ABC books have a great number of examples of different ways to divide up the ice, and many are shown in the video section. I guess the big question is: What do you want to accomplish?

I'm sure with a little more info, especially what you want the players to be learning and practicing, you'll get some great suggestions on this board. A few things come to mind right away: puck-protection battles in pairs & stick-handling in the circles for skills, cross-ice games or small area games for play concepts etc.

Other questions:
* How much of the practice will be half ice?
* How many goalies will you have?

Hope this helps,
Dave

Book 1 is here because it gives a 'common language' for coaches to share about organizing ways to teach hockey. The coding system allows a coach to classify drills and games.
A is for skating and puck handling.
B is for individual and partner skills
C is for game situations
D is organizes games
E shootouts and contests
G is for goaltending

The whole coaching system centres around the 3 Game Situations; 0-loose puck, 1-offense, 2-defense and the 4 Game Playing Roles 1-player with the puck, 2-players supporting the puck carrier, 3-player checking the puck carrier, 4-players supporting away from the puck.

This "Common Language" can be used all over the world. (I have coached either teams or clinics in North America including Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austia, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Korea) I take what I see in these places and organize them within this sytem. i.e. the coding on the various video's and drill diagrams I post. (otherwise it is a hog pog of material like the thousands of drills I have from the 30 years I have been attending seminars etc.) I found it very easy to put the drills and games I saw from my year in Europe where we had coaches from Russia, Finland, Canada, USA, Czech, Slovak, Austria, Sweden running practices.

The number after the letter tells where the players are lined up.

There is a section on Understanding the Game and Using Games to Teach the Game.

The levels 0-2 are for beginners. 0 is for non skaters, 1 gets them ore mobile with a puck and 2 has an emphasis on skating and the basic skills.

In book 2 the organizational parts are the same. There is additonal instruction on how games are the most effective teaching tool. There is an extensive section on how to play various situations like a 2-1 and Team Play such as the pp and pk and various forechecks.

Levels 3-2-5-6 are more advanced with drills and games that practice things like bodychecking, game play situations, forecheck, dzone, pp, pk, with levels 5-6 using the same transition games to focus on either the offensive or defensive roles.

The program is translated into english, Finnish, German, French, Spanish at the moment.