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My Facebook friend, Kathy C, couldn’t have posed a more timely question. For, beginner hockey players had been flocking to learn-to-play type clinics all over North America at the time, and a lot of new hockey parents were scratching their heads as they attempted to outfit their youngsters. More specifically, Kathy joked that I get to settle an ongoing debate — between her, her husband and the local pro shop guys — in determining which way her 4-year old son should hold a hockey stick. Fortunately for Kathy (and any other new hockey parents or beginner coaches), I’ve been dealing…
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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 was praying they’d work, and she was even hoping they worked quickly enough for her next game — gulp, I hate that kind of pressure!) Anyway, checking in with her a few days after, just to see how she was doing, I sensed she needed…
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It’s a funny thing, in that some subjects necessary to playing our game well seldom get talked about in hockey circles. That’s why I spend so much time seeing what coaches in other sports are doing, and that’s why I got psyched to find some pretty good help for our hockey players’ vision… Okay, I hope we can agree on something here, in that most transition sports — like hockey, basketball, soccer and lacrosse — have a lot of similarities. Of course, the big thing is that play continues in a transition game, as either a puck or ball switches hands.…
Long time hockey friends know I love fielding questions — because trying to solve them tends to make me really think, and to perhaps even become better at what I do. However, as I joked to the coach who sent me the most recent one, he didn’t have to start with such a toughie. Yup, developing team play in young hockey players can be a slow and tricky process… Now, before I really get going, members should know that I could have named this piece quite a bit differently, or I could have just pointed that coach towards an article (or two…
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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 by doing… Let me say that this piece is written for those who care most about a single sport — like ice hockey. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to participate in three or four sports, and not care about excelling in any one of them. At the…