How About a 3 on 3 Tournament
Perhaps like anywhere else, a lot of rinks in the South Shore area of Massachusetts look for creative ways to use ice-time during the off-season months. Some ideas are probably not all that great, but some surely are. No matter, I’m sharing this post mainly because some who oversee off-season hockey activities could use a little time to prepare for what I’m about to suggest.
I think one of those worthwhile undertakings is a weekend long 3 versus 3 tournament held each summer at Pilgrim Arena in Hingham, MA. (I don’t know why they dubbed that place “Arena”, because it actually houses three ice surfaces, two of regulation size and one that’s considerably smaller.)
FYI… The guys who run Pilgrim Arena have always tended to try some of the most unique stuff, even holding summer and fall 4 versus 4 leagues for local high school players. They seem to have more variety in teaching programs as well (and I sense that small rink gives them the latitude to do a lot more than other local facilities).
Their tournament takes place in the middle rink (the smaller one), which sort of forces bigger guys to handle to the puck quickly. And it’s pretty much all action, with no real stoppages… As I understand it, member teams supply one guy to quasi-officiate, his job basically including dropping the puck for the one face-off that starts the game, then ruling on goals and penalties. Oh, ya, there’s a pretty stiff punishment for a penalty, in that the fouled player is awarded a penalty shot. The play keeps going after a goal, with the scored-upon-goalie quickly dishing the puck to a teammate to start a rush back up-ice.
Teams are composed of 9-skaters and one goaltender. And most of the participants in this league are either current or former college players or pros.
Anyway, my grandson has played in this event for two summers, and that’s why I was at the rink one day, and why I happened to grab a little video footage. Hey, besides saving a few clips of Anthony for posterity, I also thought my friends here at CoachChic.com would get a kick out of seeing this kind of format…
Okay, one last minute thought… Not everyone has access to a mini-rink as described above. However, most rinks nowadays do have foam rink dividers that could easily be configured to about any shape and size one wants. True?
It is really good and efficient idea to develop players and goalies!
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Here – in Sweden – 3 coaches were the ones who started “3 on 3” and “4 on 4” in mid 90’s: yours truly, Thomas Storm and Mats “Emma” Emanuelsson. It all started on normal rinks (with foam dividers), later – when small rinks appeared. mid 2000 – already developed concepts were use there.
From the start we (yours truly, Thomas Storm and Mats “Emma” Emanuelsson) didn’t know of each others work. 2001 me and “Emma” we put our efforts together and goalie developers came in to picture as well.
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Today “3 on 3” and “4 on 4” and obvious part of any teams practice (from kids to pros) – at least 4, shorter (i.e. one part of one whole practice) times a week. It’s used in school hockey (U14, U15 and U16), it is used in high school hockey (U18 and U20), clinics, camps, tournaments etc.
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It is really good and efficient idea to develop players and goalies!
Thanks so much for your words of wisdom, Andrej, my old friend.
I was actually using a mini-rink and small area games in the early 1990s, long before they became fashionable. If there’s one problem I see with many of today’s coaches, it’s that they tend to overuse such “games”, thereby abandoning a lot of drills that would permit repetition of certain skills. (By dad was a successful baseball coach, and he used to say that a drill could guarantee a given player the repetitively practice of a certain move, while there was no guarantee that move or situation would happen even once in a game.)
“Overuse” You mentioned is plain result of lack of knowledge. Any type of drill – incl. “3 on 3” – need to have clear purpose, a point or topic. Only used this way, drills “make sense”, are developing, progressions become a natural part of such.
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Doing things for doing sake never leads to development. Doing thing right, does 🙂
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R/A