Like most coaches I am missing some players every practice. I coach a women's team in the Western Women's Hockey League. The league is trying to survive the Olympic year. The Oval Extreme has folded and 8 of the players are with the Olympic team all year, the teams in Vancouver and Saskatchewan are out because they lost sponsorship money. So it is just us, Edmonton and Minnesota (haf their players are with the USA Olympic team but they have lots of players.) A team in Winnipeg wants to join the league and have sponsorship but will play an exhibition schedule.

We practice Monday and Wednesday in the early evening. Last night we had 11 skaters and 2 goalies. One goalie and 3 skaters had to work. So our team isn't very big in the first place. This makes it harder to practice team play. All my players (but one from the Australian national team)played on scholarships somewhere in Canada or the USA. 4 of the players from the defunct Oval Extreme have joined our team.

Last night I introduced our forecheck. I went over it on the whiteboard and then we played a 5-5 controlled scrimmage. I stopped the game when they looked confused and during water breaks went over some of the key points. We had face offs and I used these breaks to coach as well.

We are using the Pounce with the LW as a defensive forward and the RD as an offensive defenseman. C and RW are the Pouncers LD is the libero or defensive defenseman.

We then practiced the power play. I want them to set up in a slot set and run low plays and then get it to the middle point and move into a 1-3-1. We have reversible practice jerseys and the white line practices 5-0 at one end and the purple at the other.

We then had a controlled scrimmage of 5-5 where the last backchecker stays in the nzone making it a 5-4 at each end.

So the practice went.
Warm up game of ringuette.
Shots on the net from the 5 spots (dot, dot, point, point, breakaway) and then from the point.
Forecheck instruction then controlled scrimmage.
Powerplay instruction, 5-0, controlled scrimmage.
Shootout-5' of one player from each team leave and pick up a puck in the middle circle and shoot, then turn and get a new puck and shoot at the other end. See which team scores the most goals before the end of practice.