Iceman,
How are you?
Great post. This is an area where I believe we coaches have "dropped the ball". I too would like to hear other responses.
I like to get the Nervous System fired up, so I start my team with a couple of quickly happening drills.
First, we do what I know as the Moosejaw passing Drill :
Three players on the circle at (1) Top of Ring, (2) Hash Marks against Boards, and (3) Hash Marks Middle Ice. The remaining players (4) are lined up in corner.
To start (4) passes to (1) and replaces him; (1) passes to (2) and replaces him: (2) passes to (3) and replaces; (3) takes the puck (between position (1) and position (2)), clears the blueline and returns for a shot on net.
The skill level of the team will dictate how quickly this drill flows. I do it out of both corners, therefore shooters must sort themselves out so that the goalie is getting the one shot at a time. Thirty secs to one minute is plenty for this.
Secondly, we move to a little "He takes my ice, I take his ice" flow drill:
Players in corner, one player (X) at top of ring. To start (X) skates the ring from middle to boards. The next player in line must move sideways to the mid ice, then skate up ice through the face-off dot before passing to (X), who is traveling up the boards.
(X) clears the blueline before turning back for a shot on net. The passer becomes (X), turning back toward the net and skating the ring. Again we do this out of both corners, so players shoot and join the other corner line. A minute and a half is good for this.
These two drills really require that the players pay attention. It works their skating, puck handling, passing and receiving, and requires that they get their head up when coming in for a shot. Now because these two drills only give the goalies shots from the middle, we'll do a quick drill that has them moving from side to side before going to a two vs one exercise.
Hope I've explained them suitably. Give them a try!
Paulie
Paulie
Our pre-game skate is pretty simple:
D-Men pair up with the partner they are going to be playing with in Neutral Zone ~ starting from 12-15 feet apart, just throw pucks back and forth and work away from each other until each guy is near the boards
1st Line stations in right side Face Off circle, moving around the clock with each touch ~ Center yells 'reverse' and then they go counter clock wise
2nd Line is in right corner, just feeding pucks to Lines 3 and 4
Lines 3 and 4 ~ player who is second on line stations just inside the blue line and takes a pass from Line 2 (right corner). He passes cross ice to player who is first on line. That guy uses one escape move and then shoots. Goalie tries to put rebound into the corners.
Stations rotate after one minute.
D Men shoot last, their shots coming on D to D cross ice feeds.
During the pre game skate, the coach pretends to be watching both teams but is actually praying that he doesn't look like in a dope at any point during the next two and 1/2 hours.
Pops,
We have done several different routines, but the one I liked best involved a single shooter warming the goalie up first while forwards do a passing drill in the 2 circles, and defence pair up and pass while transitioning back and forth outside the blue. Next all players move to the blue linesalong the boards and face center ice. Player 1 steps out backwards without puck, touch passes with his own line, then opens up and passes to the opposite line. He gets the pass back and shoots (don't know the name of this, but I took it from one of Tom's TPS videos.) Next the forwards are in the corners and D in front of the net and at points. F's pass to point and head to net, D shoot for tip-ins while net-front D box out and take sticks. End with a butterfly passing & shooting.
It sounds like a lot, but we get a little bit of everything in.....heavy on the passing, a little bit of contact, heads-up shooting with game-like conditions at the end.
Hope this helps.
DMan
We use very similar than already mentioned here; passing w/ skating, 1-0 drill w/ shot on the net and if time then 2-1 drill w/ d-man movement. Diagrams attached, hopefully self-explaining ;-).
Quote by: Koutsi97We use very similar than already mentioned here; passing w/ skating, 1-0 drill w/ shot on the net and if time then 2-1 drill w/ d-man movement. Diagrams attached, hopefully self-explaining ;-).
We have a little bit of a different view on a very minor point but here goes: In my mind, the only player who is mentally prepared to get hit with pucks in the pre-game is the goalie. The only one looking for body contact is the 'healthy scratch'. As a player (30+ years ago) I hated contact of any kind in the pre-game skate. I took one off the ankle doing one of those 2 on 1's and missed the entire game. Maybe that is just one old guy thinking out loud, but I would be curious to know what your players had to say. Once the boys reach High School and start shooting missiles, the lot of them may prefer to just get in a little skating, passing, and shooting.
Hi Pops,
Good point there and maybe that 2-1 or any other contact type of drill during pre-game should be minimized. The point in our 2-1 is to get the players doing forward/dman type of transition skating with almost play tempo at the end of the pre-game time. These are Peewees, so usually there is no time for this, or sometimes we just have them transition skating the circles. And we really should ask the players how they see this...
When I coached my son's teams we used the 5 min. warm up time like this.
1 min. everyone with a puck handling it all around the body.
1 min. Wingers shoot in a semi circle while D and C partner pass in the nzone cross ice.
1 min. Switch and D and C shoot.
90" 2 F dump the puck in one corner and D make Breakout pass, the F's turn at the red line and attack 2-1 vs. D. When they start the attack do the same thing in the other corner.
30" all line up along the boards and do a hard cross ice sprint across and back.
- all pick up the pucks and start the game.
What up fellow coaches?
I would like to hear what coaches like to run out on the ice in their pre-game warm up on the ice. We only get 5 minutes, not alot of time - I coach Pee Wees and Midgets. I watch games before and after ours to see what other teams are doing for their warm up. I would like to hear from you about what you like to do and see if I can "spice" it up for my team.
- I usually start with a passing warm up for the skaters, take one or two players to shoot on the goalie - roughly around the hash marks. "About" a minute
- I get two players opposite hash marks along the boards they skate up ice. One player stickhandles down the blue line, the other goes up throw the center redline and come in a shoot on goal. Obviously not at the same time - usually the goalie has time to move his feet over to the opposite side of the ice for the 2nd shot. "About" 2 minutes.
- We have the skaters down and around the goal line, D pass to a F1, F2 takes off opposite side towards center ice. F1 passes to F2 before/after blue line, D comes up to BL and F1 & F2 attack 2 on 1. "About" 1 minute.
- If we have time left we have the goalie out and we butterfly down the middle of the ice with a puck and shoot on net - peel off to the side, never in front or behind the net. For the remaining time.
Would love to hear other coaches thoughts, suggestions, comments, etc.
See ya - Iceman