I have a nice young lady to thank for this entry. For, you see, my video on “Incredible Stickhandling” made it just about around the world — even to a lady hockey player over in the United Kingdom. Sometime near when she purchased and downloaded those videos, she messaged me to express some concerns. (I think she…
An alternate title for this piece is “Using Stations and Games to Teach”, but it might take me a little time to explain that switch-a-roo. Up front, one just has to know that the alternate title has to have a connection to USA Hockey and it’s ADM program. After all, who else would put so…
We can list and work on all of our game’s skills, and we can design the fanciest playing system in the world. Still, there’s so much more that goes into a successful season, including what I’ll refer to here as all the “background hockey prep”… Okay, so just what do I mean by background hockey…
Over recent years, it seems tons of seminar speakers, the two North American hockey federations, and a host of do-gooder bloggers have believed that hockey players should put their gear away once their season has ended. As members will discover, I believe in that, too — at least partially, but I also believe the old adage, about learning…
I have a new group member to thank for the inspiration here. Shortly after he joined our group, we connected in a Facebook Chat. And it was then that he mentioned a want to delve through these pages and “…back up a lot of my thoughts.” As he continued, “I think coaches just need some guidance and…
Okay, if anyone thinks they can’t learn something valuable in a discussion about young players, think again. And if we have some high school or Junior coaches as members here, I’m going to suggest this would prove a very worthwhile read for them. Now, Carol, a Twitter friend from long ago, and a Manager for…
Interestingly, this question arrived in my inbox at a time when I really wanted to share a few special thoughts with my members in reference to puckhandling… Q: Susan, the mom of an 8-year old, says that her son is just starting out in a local house league program. And, while he seems to take to…
You’ll often catch me saying that my students and players have gained a lot from my studying star athletes. For example, when it comes to hockey stars, younger students benefited from my dissecting Denis Savard’s spinarama, and then teaching it in several very easy steps; while my studies of the great Ovechkin have surely helped…
Okay, the above graphic is one I’m also using elsewhere right now. But, let me tell you a little story behind that graphic… Throughout my years in the game, I’ve had countless youth coaches ask me if I’d design a lesson plan that they could use for their season ahead. Needless to say, I’d be…
This is obviously an older video, but it was inspired by my ongoing conversations with a sport psychologist many years. She was a coach and college professor, and she specialized in parent-athlete communications. And, we surely hit it off when I told her about my experiences in that area. Now, I’ve pretty much described the…