Begin in the dressing room.
Ask each player what they love to work on the most. The answer is always the same: They love shooting the puck.
Tell them to go shoot the puck at least fifty times. This, combined with skating around takes between ten and fifteen minutes.
Bring them back in.
Ask them to think about what really basic skill they need to work on. Funny enough, even children as young as six can answer this question.
Next? Ask them if they know something that they can do to improve this skill. By the time they’re 10, they likely know how to improve. Even better, as a coach, I can give them one small, specific thing to pay attention to in order to improve.
So, have them practice something they want to practice for fifteen minutes.
Then? Divide them into groups of three. Have them skate around and play with one puck per group. The instruction? Work together. Move the puck around. Cover lots of ground and support each other. Watch out for the other group.
Do this for twenty minutes.
By now, they’ll be quite tired.
Have them play a seven minute scrimmage against each other.
And for the final three minutes? Have them skate around and shoot the puck a bunch more. This is a great time to play with trick shots and fancy dekes.
I don’t know if this teaches them anything about hockey.
Most practices I’ve seen involve a lot of being told where to stand, what to do and how to do it.
When it comes to life, I’ve found that the stand here, do that approach is as boring as it is ineffective.
By loosening up the rules, drills and structures that define our lives we get more opportunities to explore and play. Loosing up structures, restrictions and outcomes opens up room for creativity, joy and a greater level of engagement.
Where can you create room to just play around a bit?
It’s like the old saying goes
You can lead a horse to water but that won’t make it a fish.
Jimmy, you got it, the more movement and the puck play the better, all that stand here do this shite can be done on a board in two seconds in Junior B... Play! Ponder! Move, keep warm, explore, slide, climb the glass... This issue is a personal bedbug, sorry-- North American sports are destroyed by how coaching/admin/politics---I should stop here--- they try to literally take the ball/puck out of the player's hands. (American Football and Baseball, Jesus) So many times I've jogged by a soccer practise in North America-- one ball at the coach's foot, 22 players standing around blah blah blah. In Spain/South America, every kid has a ball at their foot at all the time, even in the dressing room, on the bus, why not juggle while listening, why not just feel the ball, caress, massage, flick, test, stand on the ball all while listening, why not play and listen... Run them into the ground. (side-coaching works well in the performing arts)
Anyway I could go on but The Atlantic is more quotable:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/can-this-man-save-us-soccer/426858/
Sometimes I imagine all the wide-receivers and linebackers and outfielders given a round ball with no coach, few rules, joy and time--and well, the World Cup would change dramatically. All that said, Basketball and Hockey still, because of speed, give the players some space to dance. And as a coach, that's the ticket, in my book.
I couldn’t agree with you more!! It’s like “blocking” in theatre. It drives me nuts because it feels like you’re stuck in a box and you can’t figure it out organically.
I’m so much the same when it comes to teaching, it’s all about experimentation, trial and error. Some kids have difficulty with that because they’ve bee. Indoctrinated by the factory! Love your coaching style!