If you didn’t know by now, there is a lot of bad — or misguided — information out there, when it comes to off-season training advice. Most hockey seasons are winding down right now, so I thought this a good time to offer my two cents worth. Really, I have some great stuff planned for coming weeks and months, and the contents of the nearby video should provide an awesome background to much of that. Number One, of course, is that I have to convince you that the coming off-season can actually be THE most important time of the…
As I finished typing the above title, it struck me how much of my hockey coaching — and problem solving — has relied on the use of video. Â This brief aside… My first paid coaching gig was at a rink that owned one of the first video recorders and players ever made. And, while this may sound funny today to folks who don’t recall such, I’d never before been able to do what I could do with that machine, like sitting and playing (and playing and playing) a certain segment of a game or a practice, to study every…
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A lot of years ago — actually, before USA Hockey changed to that name, I did a lot of work with their forerunner, AHAUS. Â And one of those jobs — back when video was very new — included being in on the designing of some instructional tapes to share with their membership. (I mean, the small group I worked with back then was preparing training videos for coaches from the entire United States.) So, we’re in a meeting one night in a nice spot on a pier in Boston, MA, and hashing over the topics to include in our very…
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I’m sure I sometimes sound a little snobbish — like today in social media when I posted: “I got so tired of watching current day hockey coaches teaching backward skating wrong — and I mean REALLY wrong, that I decided to start a video on that subject for my Mastermind Group. Ugh.” Truly, guys, I can’t help myself. Supposed gurus are telling totally wrong or totally unscientific things to unknowing youth coaches, parents and new adult players, and those poor people are going to think their guidance is right. Before going further, I need to refer back to the three…
This might be the second most important teaching principle any hockey coach, parent or player could know. In a nutshell, what it says is that a drill loses its effectiveness once a player (or group of players) has mastered the drill. In a way, my old prof was telling us that we would be wasting our players’ time by reusing and reusing the same drill. Of course, as soon as the drill is mastered, no further growth occurs. What’s the answer? As I showed in the video, it would be to add new challenges. But, in reality, what we’re…
I’ve created a series of short videos aimed at dispelling some hockey myths and wives’ tales, or offering advice for things many newer coaches, parents and adult players struggle with. I want Hockey Mastermind Group members to know these things, but I’m also going to leave these videos available to the public. My hope is that those who don’t know me might gain a sense of the things I tackle within our membership group. As I say often, topics here are seldom ever covered in free YouTube.com and similar type forums.
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There’s actually a lot more to this story than I could fit in the above video. So, here we go… These video clips came about after I watched a Junior hockey tournament in Orlando, Florida, along with several other scouts. One young scout was particularly vocal about the way players were carrying their sticks, and I knew why. You see, he was a former pro who didn’t like wearing a facemask, which means he also disliked players who didn’t control their sticks, or skated while hold the stick up high. Of course, we both were bothered by the fact that…