I've been coaching for 15 years. I've used elements of Hockey Coaching ABC's for 6 years and plan to get my Level 4 card over CCHA Championship weekend in Detroit.
In our recent Squirt AA playoff games, our team is winning by 6 plus goals against teams that we played closely at the beginning of the season.
Obviously most of this is due to the kids working hard in practice and coming together as a team. I am noticing that we have a lot more kids scoring in recent games.
I'm attempting to understand if the coaching has improved. I'm not sure but this season I had more of a plan preseason than usual. We skate 3 days per week.
My plan for this season:
95% of our practices consist of skating techniques or small area games.
My goal was for players to carry pucks on every single skating drill. We have not deviated.
We had 3 core drills that were too difficult for our players at seasons beginning. We have run these 3 drills every practice. There has been noticable improvement.
The drills were:
1) Skating the dots with pucks forward, backward and transitioning in patterns ending with a shot on net. 2) Wisconsin passing drill variations 1-0 1-1 2-1 3-1 3) 3 Man Weave full ice emphasis offensive triangle.
We have added competitive elements to each of these drills. We call it shoot to score. The first to 3 goals gets to take a knee as the winner. The other players take a knee and cheer on their teammates until all finish.
We play 10-15 different SAGs with varying rules from adding players to the attach, to continuous 3-2, to passes to safeties etc etc. The players love these drills. We rotate letting a player pick each player pick a favorite for a practice.
Coaches take about 2 minutes on ice prior to Skating the Dots and talk about all the good things a particular player has done in games/practices the prior week. That player leads the team in Skating the Dots.
We chalk talk about positioning before, after, and during games. We spend zero time on positioning in practices. The theory was the players would learn by playing the SAGs in practices. The coaches would give them additional "tips" during the games of how they could handle various situations differently.
We rotated positions for most of the season a month at a time. We have settled into our best team lineup over the last month.
Our games were not pretty to start but we are finishing strongly. I'm seeing a lot of increased hockey sense amongst our players. Best if all, our opponents are asking me how we were placed in their playoff division! --------------------------------- Tony I am sure it is your style of coaching that is allowing your players to improve and play well. The kind of practices you describe will have the players moving a lot more than the standard 7-11 minutes per hour that drill based practices allow. You are also letting them do some of the decision making which is in agreement with the article that Kai posted yesterday and the games are creating situations where your players have to make decisions and perform skills while under pressure.
The skating skills you are doing are also great because they have the players moving in all directions and the competitive nature of the drills encourages the players to learn to do the skills at high speed.
I've been coaching for 15 years. I've used elements of Hockey Coaching ABC's for 6 years and plan to get my Level 4 card over CCHA Championship weekend in Detroit.
In our recent Squirt AA playoff games, our team is winning by 6 plus goals against teams that we played closely at the beginning of the season.
Obviously most of this is due to the kids working hard in practice and coming together as a team. I am noticing that we have a lot more kids scoring in recent games.
I'm attempting to understand if the coaching has improved. I'm not sure but this season I had more of a plan preseason than usual.
We skate 3 days per week.
My plan for this season:
95% of our practices consist of skating techniques or small area games.
My goal was for players to carry pucks on every single skating drill. We have not deviated.
We had 3 core drills that were too difficult for our players at seasons beginning. We have run these 3 drills every practice. There has been noticable improvement.
The drills were:
1) Skating the dots with pucks forward, backward and transitioning in patterns ending with a shot on net.
2) Wisconsin passing drill variations 1-0 1-1 2-1 3-1
3) 3 Man Weave full ice emphasis offensive triangle.
We have added competitive elements to each of these drills. We call it shoot to score. The first to 3 goals gets to take a knee as the winner. The other players take a knee and cheer on their teammates until all finish.
We play 10-15 different SAGs with varying rules from adding players to the attach, to continuous 3-2, to passes to safeties etc etc.
The players love these drills. We rotate letting a player pick each player pick a favorite for a practice.
Coaches take about 2 minutes on ice prior to Skating the Dots and talk about all the good things a particular player has done in games/practices the prior week. That player leads the team in Skating the Dots.
We chalk talk about positioning before, after, and during games. We spend zero time on positioning in practices. The theory was the players would learn by playing the SAGs in practices. The coaches would give them additional "tips" during the games of how they could handle various situations differently.
We rotated positions for most of the season a month at a time. We have settled into our best team lineup over the last month.
Our games were not pretty to start but we are finishing strongly. I'm seeing a lot of increased hockey sense amongst our players. Best if all, our opponents are asking me how we were placed in their playoff division!
---------------------------------
Tony I am sure it is your style of coaching that is allowing your players to improve and play well. The kind of practices you describe will have the players moving a lot more than the standard 7-11 minutes per hour that drill based practices allow. You are also letting them do some of the decision making which is in agreement with the article that Kai posted yesterday and the games are creating situations where your players have to make decisions and perform skills while under pressure.
The skating skills you are doing are also great because they have the players moving in all directions and the competitive nature of the drills encourages the players to learn to do the skills at high speed.
Your Process is resulting in a positive Product.
I bet your players also Love coming to practice.