Team Covenant
I got this idea when former NHL coach of the year Bob Murdoch was a guest speaker in my college hockey coaching class. I asked him to speak on team play and he said he would rather speak about how to develop a team.
A Team Covenant is a charter that the players develop themselves. It is signed by all of the players and is the template for how they behave, practice, approach the game and their life outside the game. Bob says he will never coach a team without them agreeing on a covenant and I agree with him.
This season as soon as the team was chosen and we had played a few ex games and chose captains, I met with the captains and explained the Team Covenant and asked them to lead a meeting to develop one for the season.
We had a picnic after an exhibition game and then the team met without the coaches and developed a 10 point covenant that they all signed and then laminated it. It travels with the team all of the time and defines what they expect of each other and what the coaches can expect of them.
They can refer to it when talking with each other about behavior issues, practice intensity etc. and it is something the coaches use as a guideline to accomplish the goals they have set for themselves and the team.
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Bob's class is in the video section and it has a lot of other great ideas.
Team Identity and style of play.
Once you have your players, coaching staff and team covenant in place it is time to decide an effective style of play for your group.
I believe that it is important to start with the Big Ideas like defensive zone coverage, forecheck, back check, power play, penalty kill, rushes. Teach one each practice and play some kind of game that uses the style you want. Put all of these things in place in the first couple of weeks. You can walk through them in the parking lot or a gym, give handouts and video links etc.
After the Big Ideas are in place it is time to start working on the details like angling, dside, offensive triangle and box, stick on stick and body on body etc. Have drills, games, transition games that emphasize these details. Work on the individual offensive and defensive skills and methodically cover all of them as the season progresses. Your games will tell you what need to be worked on but you also have to have a master plan of covering everything.
If you can get a similar level team to have team play scrimmages with you and work through the various situations it is great. We have done this and have 12 minute segments of 5-4 etc. Start with 3 minutes at the bench and then one team gets a pp for the next 9 minutes. Go through every situation.
So the season plan is Deductive working from the Big Ideas to the small Details.
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These are my opinions which have worked for me. I would like to read what has worked for other coaches.
Tom - Thanks for sharing this. I went back and watched the whole Bob Murdoch video....it is very entertaining and revealing. (He really gives your students a hard time about being asleep in their seats!) I like the focus on teaching hockey as a transition game from stage to stage. This give the parts of the game that we work on in practice more relevance.
Do you have any examples of good team covenants? Having never let the players develop their own I think they might need a little guidance (and so do I!). Also, how much (if any) team building activity do you do, and what do you like to do for this?
Thanks,
Dave
Dave good to hear from you. I saw your post while we were on the bus back from our game vs Medicine Hat but thought typing on my iphone screen would be too hard bouncing down the highway.
I have attached a copy or Bob's team covenant from a pro team he coached in Germany.
The process is to give the players ownership of the team. They decide the rules, goals and priorities so when you are talking to them you are talking about things they say they want to accomplish. It also gives permission for players to miss because of funerals or family crisis without being criticized. It enables you to set curfews if they will accomplish the goals the players have set.
Team Building:
My team this year had a big sleepover at one of the players houses and made t-shirts for the rookies etc. We haven't lost since they did this. Guys would probably have a get together to watch UFC or something.
We have 15 skaters and as long as they come to practice they play in all the situations and the goalies rotate. I am tempted to go with pp and pk specialists but I haven't and we have had an effective pk and pp so far using everyone. My coach at Bemidji, Bob Peters, always said we are only as good as our weakest player. I want everyone to be able to play in all situations by the end of the season. They will only practice hard if there is a reason to get better and that reason is that they get to play in games and their teammates are relying on them.
Never be a micro manager like my favorite NHL team that I watched yesterday and tell the world in the newspaper that you only have two elite players and the rest are slugs so you must not allow the slugs to cross the blue line with the puck and make a play but to only dump it in and cycle mindlessly until you finally try a blind pass to the middle and the opponents take it down the ic CARRY INTO THE ZONE and create a scoring chance.
You have to allow them to make mistakes and learn from them if they are going to grow. The players own the game and the coach owns the practice.
I think this is the most important thing a coach can do. Give the players a reason to get better and they will surprise you.
Quote by: TomMI am starting a new topic on the Art and Science of Coaching.
I would like to read the views of lots of coaches that come to this site from various countried. I know that a lot of coaches are just looking for drills, lots to read the articles that Dean and others post. Share your ideas on coaching, share your on ice drills and games as well as team play ideas.
How do you orgaizie your team. Do you have everyobne practice every skill or is everything position specific?
I will start the discussion in the next post and discuss Team Covenanat.
I wanted to jump in but not sure on if this is what you meant.
In regards to style of play... We start off teaching the D-Zone and we teach it as follows....(age 16-20)
We start with a 1 on 1 below the top of the circles and not past the far post (so the corner). Once we feel we have a good start with that we progress to 2 on 2 in the same area. We play in layers so the second defensive player has two main responsibilities, 1. He must watch the supporting offensive player and be close enough to arrive at the same time a pass does. 2. He must watch the closest defending player in case of a break down he must play the 2 on 1 until his teammate gets back into position. Supporting players stick must always be on the ice until he is in a position to commit. After we feel we have a good taste of 2 on 2 we move on to 2 on 2 (still in the corner) but we add a point man and a defending wing (3 on 3) We play on one half of the ice were the wing works on eliminating passes to the point and covering the offensive man rolling off the wall. We work on body position and keeping a shoulder on both the d-man and also the puck with the stick in the passing lane. Once we have this down, we add the 3rd low player, still half of the ice. In our system he plays half way to their third man with his stick on the ice. He also plays the dual role of watching for a breakdown and being able to jump the pass to his man. After this we add the fifth player and play full zone. All players take turns on each role and we make sure to mix in multiple forwards playing defense at once so they see more reps.
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Eric it looks like a good sequence to teach the dzone. thanks for jumping into the discussion.
Quote by: TomM
Never be a micro manager like my favorite NHL team that I watched yesterday and tell the world in the newspaper that you only have two elite players and the rest are slugs so you must not allow the slugs to cross the blue line with the puck and make a play but to only dump it in and cycle mindlessly until you finally try a blind pass to the middle and the opponents take it down the ic CARRY INTO THE ZONE and create a scoring chance.
You have to allow them to make mistakes and learn from them if they are going to grow. The players own the game and the coach owns the practice.
I think this is the most important thing a coach can do. Give the players a reason to get better and they will surprise you.
I presume you are mentioning the Flames? I didn't listen or read much after the 2-0 loss to Nashville, but if this is what you are referring to, it doesn't surprise me that it was said. The NHL is trapped in a bygone era; knucledraggers with clubs still rule that league! The NHL needs a coaching revolution to occur... using Game Intelligence!
"You have to allow them to make mistakes and learn from them if they are going to grow. The players own the game and the coach owns the practice."
This is music to my ears!
Mistakes = learning opportunities because nobody is perfect... if they were, there wouldn't be any mistakes!
The coach designs and runs the practice while the game is left to the players. That is why practice is so important. Don't waste it with mindless drills! Hold players accountable and let the game teach the game!
Bravo Tom!
Dean I think that there are lots of different levels of coaching in the NHL. When Pittsburg was here at the start of the season it was easy to see that they are allowed to be creative and tha coaches adapted the team play after the first to take advantage of the opposition.
The Oilers came here and played a passive 1-4 vs the Flames passive 1-4 and the most excitement I had that night was waiting for the train after the game.
If drills have a purpose such as clarifying an individual skill or team play problem then they benefit the player and the team. They must have a purpose. The coach then needs to put these skills into a competitive situation so they are being done under pressure. Horst Wein calls the drills CORRECTIVE EXERCISES and uses them to fix problems.
So drills and games are both needed during practice and the coach has to decide what the correct ratio is.
A player should only be standing in line for enough time to recover for the next rep and the drills must require good technique and good habits to be effective.
Good stuff guys - Tom, after we pick captains their first job will be to come up with a covenant as a group. Eric, thanks for sharing your info. We have been doing lots of 1 v 1 work and introduced the DZ coverage, but it's time to add layers and this looks like a great way to do it. Dean - we are a young team, especially on defense, so making mistakes and learning from them will have to be our mantra this year.
In general, I like to do some work with F and D separate from each other, but not all. Things like DZ puck retrieval after a dump-in, pulling the puck off the boards with deception and speed, hinging and support to transition all over the ice are done with just the D, while forwards work on shooting in-stride, cycling etc at the other end. I too like to start team play with DZC, face-offs & transitions then move forward one zone at a time. The team covenant and team building will be new for us this year. I'm excited to see how it goes.
Dave
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Good luck with it Dave. Make sure you tell them that the covenant will map the direction the team wants to go and that you will follow what they want. By doing this they can never think that you tricked them into saying a bunch of pie in the sky things.
If you play you want to win, you want everyone to buy into the sytem, you want to have fun. It would be unusual for a team to agree to be crappy and undisciplined. If they say that you would be in for a long season.
Here is our identity (or more like vision) and how we see us in spring 2013.
Active
- 5 attacks, 5 defends. be ready to play. move with and without the puck.
- passing and receiving, we want to be known as a great passing team.
- in role 2, want the puck don't runaway it.
- We allways work more than opponent. We are ready to pay the price, block shots and win the loose pucks, backchecking
- independent training, recovery training
- Training + Nutrition + Rest = DEVELOPMENT, long term development
- understand and identify changing game situations (attack – defend –loose puck)
- understand game's pioritys
- Reacts by the 4 playing roles
- Know how to behave
- School first
Don't hide yourself
No rims, no dump ins (only if we can win the puck back
dare to keep the puck.
I know these are big words, right now we are not even close to this vision, but working really hard to get there.
Nice work Kai.
You might want to include the age and level of your kids / team so everyone knows...
Spring 2013 or 2012?
Quote by: hockeygodNice work Kai.
You might want to include the age and level of your kids / team so everyone knows...
Spring 2013 or 2012?
Sorry 
U15
2013, I'm two seasons with them.
Kai, it looks like a solid outline of season goals to me. Good luck with it.
I am starting a new topic on the Art and Science of Coaching.
I would like to read the views of lots of coaches that come to this site from various countried. I know that a lot of coaches are just looking for drills, lots to read the articles that Dean and others post. Share your ideas on coaching, share your on ice drills and games as well as team play ideas.
How do you orgaizie your team. Do you have everyobne practice every skill or is everything position specific?
I will start the discussion in the next post and discuss Team Covenanat.
'Enjoy the Game'