Where Do Hockey Drills Come From? Part 1

It’s been several years now, since one of my Team NEHI assistants described something he’d seen on a newscast.  I guess the sports segment showed some clips of our local NHL hockey team, and then it highlighted the team’s new coach.  As my friend excitedly explained, the guy was being lauded by his players, mainly because of the way he made practices fun and interesting.  And I guess that pro coach was also credited with inventing a number of his own drills, including one my assistant saw and marveled at.

Now, I’m taking this all in, and I’m sort of smiling on the inside (hey, maybe I was even grinning on the outside).  No matter, I ultimately shared with my assistant the fact that I create drills all the time.  (More recently I’ve stated that I probably invented pretty close to a drill per week, although sometimes it’s only a drill per month.)

What I think really amazed my assistant was the fact that anyone could just up and design a new drill — be it that NHL guy, yours truly, or anyone else.

Anyway, we were interrupted before too long, so I had to leave-off with a simple enough question, “Where do you think drills come from?”

That, of course, gives you and me a place to begin.  And, it also provides the opportunity for some spin-off examples over coming months.

~ Dennis C

*

Now, I really need to break this discussion into two segments, mainly because the second part has to be protected for my dedicated members. Trust me, that Part 2 is going to be almost a coaching course in one fairly long post.