Tony,
It sounds like you are running a wide variety of drills. I don't think you are missing anything... perhaps do some skill stuff for the first 15 minutes, then get into playing!
A couple of questions:
1) In your opinion, in comparison to your entire league, what type of skill level (on average) does your travel team that age possess? On a scale of 1-10... 10 being your team is the most skilled travel team that age in your league.
2) What is the average percentage of time split between your drills and your games? IE: for a 1 hour practice, 45 minutes drills / 15 minutes games? 30 Drills / 30 Games? 15 Drills / 45 Games?
3) Have you done a time analysis of one of your typical practices? How much time is one of your players engaged (involved in a drill / activity... not standing on line or sitting on the bench) vs. total time in practice? How much time does one of your players have the puck on his tape over the course of the entire practice? (Best way is to record a practice and then watch it - using a stopwatch / pen / paper.) Once you get the numbers, can you re-think or improve your practices such that you increase a) activity time... b) puck time... ? How will you do this?
One hint: in a traditional practice, ensure all players (including goalies) do any skating drills with a puck. Can you think of other ways?
Tony, don't take this the wrong way, but if you have been reading much of this site, you know I am ANTI-Drill and PRO-game!
You might be the opposite. I hope I can 'convert' you to becoming more open-minded towards games - if you aren't already! (If you aren't prepared to try more games, then disregard the rest of my post!!!)
We have been coaching 24 skaters and 4 goalies (2000-2001's) since September. Most kids play Div 1 and 2 with the odd one playing Div 3. They came to us because WE DON'T DO ANY drills. They get that 2-3 times per week in their normal hockey practices - and apparently, they don't like drills much as there is too much standing around in line, waiting... go figure! Kids want to play! Earth shattering news, eh??!! Nope...
We play games for 1 hour per week. The parents and kids love it; they all want more of it but we haven't been able to get any more ice time before school. The kids get to practice their individual skills and tactics during 1 v 1's; team tactics are added as soon as they play with a teammate! Plus we fine-tune attention to details things surrounding the four offensive and four defensive principles of play... AND we reinforce good work habits! (You can't achieve all of this in any drill... and drills are inherently NOT preparing the player to 'play' in a 'real' game... we say, "Perform Skills... Quickly... With Head Up... Under Pressure... Consistently!" Do you keep score during your drills? If not, you are de-training the natural competitive urges of the players. How do you or your players know if they are getting better? Are there any objective measures (time / score / distance?)
By playing lots of 1 v 1 up to 3 v 3, all on one ice surface (could be 1/2 ice or cross-ice or full ice), the kids get tons of playing time, fitness is challenged as we only talk for about 5 minutes out of 60 (setup, 1 minute break in middle, debrief at end along with scores / accountability), and the kids are constantly playing! We can change the purposes and parameters of our games to meet our teaching / skills / tactics / systems needs; as well as manipulating the work to rest ratios. We keep score (two parent volunteer scorekeepers on the bench) and we hold the players (and goalies) accountable at the end. We let the game be the best teacher of the game...
I know this is a slightly different situation, but we would use a majority of competitive game-like situations even if we were coaching a 'team' - we might use 15 minutes to perform drills and skills in combination (and make it competitive as time goes on... dependent on skill level) then do tons of 1 v 1 up to 2 v 2... eventually 3 v 3 so they can understand triangulation. (We would also use 1 v 2 / 2 v 1; 2 v 3 / 3 v 2). Doesn't mean my philosophy is 'right' - but I have done it the traditional way (it sucks!) and this Game Intelligence way (it rocks!) and I know which one works best, for me, for the kids and for the parents ($takeholder$)!
For more ideas on this philosophy, please see the Game Intelligence thread.
All the best,
Tony
Tony it sounds like you have quite a few drills. I would do some detail things like stick on the puck, angling,. At that age do skating technique about ten minutes each practice. The team play drills sound that you do sound ok.
My goal is always
A.I.M.
Activity - 80%
Instruction - 10%
Maintenance - 10% (moving around to another station etc.)
In my skills class we allow the players to shoot on their own, or some other activity the first ten minutes while we skate around and give individual feedback. 20 minutes is spent on individual or team skills and the last 30 minutes on SAG or full ice games and transition games.
My U18 team usually starts with a skating and balance warm up while carrying a puck and usually finish with a shot and then we do something with passing and shooting. this takes the first 15 minutes.
We spend about 15 minutes doing technique and often the forwards are wiith me, D and G's with my asst. coaches.
The rest of practice is spent in competition using transition games, SAG's, full ice games and we always end with some sort of shootout or contest.
I keep track of who wins and loses and the losers have to do some skating or push ups and if no one wins then all must do something.
I think that every practice should have a theme that all of the drills and games revolve around. and progress through the 4 game playing roles and the three game situations.
Game Situations:
0-loose puck
1-offense
2-defense
4 Game Playing Roles
1-player with the puck
2-players supporting the puck carrier
3-player checking the puck carrier.
4-players covering away from the puck in combined zone-man to man.
You need to teach the skills involved in all three situations and all 4 game playing roles if you want to develop Complete Players. It is also important to use transition games and games so the players learn how to smoothly move from one role to the other. i.e. chase a loose puck - Potential players in role 1-3 battle for it while players in role 2-4. You get the puck so you are in role 1 and then pass it (you aren't in role 1 anymore but now in role 2) you break for a pass but the opponent in role 4 intercepts and now is in role 1 and you are closest so you are in role 3. He passes and now you are in role 4 and cover him.
In a 60 min. stop time game your team gets the puck between 180-200 times and the other team the same. So you are constantly changing roles. The puck is loose about 30% of the time in hockey, much more than in other sports. So learning to battle for loose pucks and learning how to read away from the puck is critical.
This is why using drills where players work on role 1 and role 3 in a 1-1 or all 4 roles in a 2-2 isn't good enough because they don't have to make any reads, no game sense is taught.
Wow great stuff! Thanks.
Brief background. I probably read Tom's book 6 years ago and implemented cross ice hockey in our association at that time, well before the ADM, from my association board position.
I have an older 99 by son whom I coached. At that time I was hypersensitive about standing in lines and we pretty much played all games.
I since have backtracked and now take more time to teach with my younger sons 01 team. I spend more time teaching skating, stickhandling and team play techniques.
I use Tom's 3 player roles when teaching the game to my players. I keep it very simple.
EG Tonight's 80 min practice we had about 13 skaters and 2 goalies.
Goalies warmup in one end while we skated cross ice with pucks holding inside edges and outside edges. 1 legged stride work and then two cross overs each direction cross ice. All with pucks.
We then skated the dots with pucks fwd, bwd, transition from fwd to bwd stopping on dots, tight turns around dots. Shot at end of drill.
We then skated 3 circles out of each corner finishing with a 1-0 shot. This is a continuous drill with no lines.
As a cool down, we broke into pairs and practiced shooting off a pass into the boards all around the rink.
We remained in pairs and passed back and forth until the whistle and then played a puck protection 1 v 1 around each faceoff dot in the rink. Players get a point for possessing the puck as it crosses the faceoff dot.
Then we ran wisconsin 1-0 working passing in a dynamic situation. We changed to 1 v 1 from the same wisconsin formation.
We followed it up with some 3 man weave full ice.
We broke into stations in each end. 1 station was a 5-0 break out 3-2 breakin the other station was 1 timer drill skating the circles and receiving passes from both corners.
We then played an SAG of 2 on 2 nets back to back simulating lots of centering passes and moving without the puck.
We played a cross ice break out game of 2 on 2 where 1 player had to take the puck behind their net and complete a pass before the center line on a turnover. Other team had to skate behind their net on loss of possession.
We finished with a game of 2 on 2 in the offensive zone where each team had a defensemen and all shots had to originate from their point. Forwards must stay below top of circles and could tip or score on rebounds. Emphasized defensemen moving to open lane to receive pass and walking in puck shooting with head up.
Losers of the SAGs do pushups or laps but I always give losers a shot for redemption. Practice is round 40% SAGs.
Tony
Tony it sounds like an effective practice. A lot more fun than I see my grandson the same age do at his practices.
Don't forget to do games with skill rules and continuous transition games.
Thanks Tom. I am always looking to learn and improve our practices.
I had a feeling I was weak on transition games having come from Mite coaching. I have to be careful running drills/sags that are too complicated at this age. Can you give me some specific skill rule games and transition games that are age appropriate?
Games we play: 3 on 3 backwards only skating or backhand shots/passes only; 3 on 3 no shot or 3 on 3 1 timers only; 3 on 2 in the offensive zone ( 1 players cannot corss middle line) and add a man by passing back to the point; multiple 1 v 1 games in the offensive zone as well.
We play a game called puck dog. All but 3 players have a puck in the offensive zone. The 3 players without pucks (puck dogs) work together to steal and score pucks. Once a player has their puck scored, they become a puck dog. Last player with their puck wins!
I need to think more about integrating player roles when designing practices in the future. That will be a challenge for me to wrap my head around. Our team is on the weak side in their age division since we play 01 level but half our players are 02s. For that reason we spend the majority of our time working on skills.
Tony
Tony, it sounds like you use a lot of games with modified rules that will help the players. I had a skills session with 6 players this morning and I filled in for another coach. We did a lot of puck handling and then I had them play cross ice 1-1 using the stripes on the boards as goals. We then moved to 3-3 using the red stripes and the rule that everyone must touch the pass before scoring.
You can play with good habit rules like always face the puck, you must take at least 3 hard strides before a shot or pass, make an escape move, only forehand passes, etc. There are lots of examples in this site.
Search D1, D4, D2, D5 for examples. For transition games search DT100, 200, 400 and you will get lots of ideas.
I'm coaching a travel team of 01-02s (9-10) yos. We practice twice a week and play 1 or 2 games a week. I'm interested in discussion on how many different drills we should be introducing with the players at this age.
We have a core of around 12 pattern skating drills (run 3 or 4 per practice) with pucks mostly resulting in 1-0s with goalie. These work footwork, edgework, crossovers, forward to backwards transitions etc.
We run variations of Wisconsin and Philly drills and 3 Man Weave for passing and 1-0 shooting.
We run some 5-0 break out transition to 3-2 break in drills in each end.
The remainding time is spent in stations on a variaition of cross ice and other formatted SAGS to teach hockey sense.
I probably have run a total of 20-25 different drills total this season with our team.
Does that sound reasonable? Am I missing any obvious areas? Thanks!