Hockey: A Simple Game Of Progress, Basics, Repetition And Attitude
Huron Hockey Coaches Corner Article
PROGRESSION
Before you can solve calculus problems, you must understand simple multiplication, addition and how to count. It's a simple step by step process that an adolescent must go through somewhere between pre-school and college. The timing and order of these steps is critical. Try to teach a 6-year-old calculus and you'd be lost. What does this have to do with hockey? Well, the same principles apply.
Before hockey players can execute an effective 2-3 left wing lock forecheck, they must understand the more common 2-1-2 forecheck. Before any forechecking system is understood, they must first learn how to play transition hockey both offensively and defensively in the neutral zone. Before they learn about the neutral zone, it's breakouts, and before that it's defensive zone concepts. Prior to that, they must learn basic skills like passing, stickhandling and shooting. Before that, they must be able to get around the rink so they must learn how to skate. Try to teach a basic neutral zone trap or the principles of offensive zone cycling to a 6-year-old and you'd be lost.
Children process things in small doses. A phone number to them is remembering seven different things. To a teenager it's remembering two things (a three-digit number followed by a four-digit number). For adults (if our memory doesn't fail us) a phone number is simply one thing to remember and we've got several of them memorized. Kids just can't store information the way adults do. Therefore, teaching kids in small doses, in a progressive, building block style, keeping in mind that sometimes less is more, is the best approach in many activities and it works this way in hockey. It is too difficult for young hockey players to conceptualize more advanced hockey strategies. They are too busy keeping up mentally and physically with the basics of passing, stickhandling, shooting and of course, skating. Giving them too much to digest can be counter productive, effect their overall development and reduce or even eliminate the fun of learning.
BASICS
It is important to progress, but we always need the basics. Look at a mite team warm-up before a game and you'll notice that it's not that much different from a squirt warm-up or a peewee warm-up. Even the pros constantly work on the basics and their warm-ups aren't much different than a college or junior team's warm-up. The basics will always be the basics. Teams that get ahead of themselves find themselves 'going back to the basics'. Teams that get too fancy are told to 'stick to the basics'. It's these pure fundamentals that are the root of all sport. Look at baseball and you'll see little leaguers working on the fundamentals like routine fly balls, routine grounders, hitting the cutoff man, etc. The major leaguers work on the exact same things - THE BASICS!
Our focus as coaches, parents and teachers should be on guiding our youth progressively through the basics. The game will always feature skating, passing, stickhandling and shooting. The kids have fun with it, so why should the emphasis ever be on anything else?
REPETITION
It's by repetition that skills improve. In fact, it takes some 5000 repetitions to make something habitual. Our skaters need to constantly repeat performing skills in order to excel. The rules don't change when you get older either. That's why you see the pros skating for the majority of practice and shooting 100+ pucks a day. That's why power skates are virtually the same from Mites to Bantams. They may appear different and have a variety of progressions, but the drills that work edges or stress conditioning are the same. Expectations are different, but the drills are not. There is absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel. Elaborate strategies and systems will come into play in due time. At this stage of the game, whether your skater is a mite or a bantam, they need to be repetitive with things like edgework, balance points, recovery, overall puck control, upper body working in conjunction with the lower body, etc. Repetition is critical because the basics are a constant. A skater can go through the motions or they can push themselves. It's really up to them and it's all in their attitude.
ATTITUDE
Older kids are expected to push themselves more, to be self-motivated, to demonstrate self-discipline and a stronger work ethic. Just as you would expect your teenager to have more responsibilities at home than your eight year old, so to is more expected from the bantams and peewees as compared to the squirts and mites. This is the case as much on the ice as it is off the ice and in general, a skater will get out of it what they put into it. The basics don't change, a skater's attitude does. A good attitude at the rink is something that is common among our youngest skaters. They try all the drills, even if they are unsuccessful, and they have loads of fun at the rink. If not properly developed and maintained over the years, this positive attitude can dissipate as our skaters mature. It's up to parents and coaches to help keep this type of attitude in the forefront, with the understanding that as much as we try, it really needs to come from them. We can try to push and motivate, we can try to skate them until they puke, we can throw buzz words around like overspeed and power skates and high intensity training, but the only kids we will reach are the ones that want to be reached. The youth hockey players that want to excel are those that choose to excel by showing progress through working at the basics by repetition. As much as we are here to guide them, at some point in their youth hockey career they must do it on their own and demonstrate it every time they hit the ice.
BOTTOM LINE
It's a simple formula. Hockey is a progression, which utilizes a repetition of the basics and rewards those with the proper attitude. The approach a skater takes to the game is entirely up to them, but as adults we can most definitely steer them in the right direction. However, we make it more difficult for our kids by not having the right approach ourselves. Coaching from the stands, putting down players, promoting selfish play through individual awards, and overall negative behaviors have no place in youth sports. The game helps those that help themselves. We can't always control things that happen around us, but we can control the type of attitude we bring to the hockey arena. When these things all come together it's a lot of fun. It's been 25 years and I'm still having a blast!