Thinking the Game – Defensively

Avoid These Common Intermediate-level Playing Mistakes

By | May 25, 2023

Playing ice hockey can be a thrilling experience, but even intermediate-level players can sometimes make mistakes that affect their performance and their team’s success. So, let’s take a closer look at the more common mistakes and how they might be avoided (while at the same time adding a little levity to a sometimes frustrating area of our game)…

Effective Ways To Teach Hockey Players To Read And React In Games

By | May 20, 2023

Having a little fun here, I thought I’d lighten the format some, but without lessening the importance of our topic, teaching our players to read and react better in their games…

Essential Skills For Intermediate Hockey Players

By | May 17, 2023

Intermediate-level ice hockey players need to master a range of skills to succeed in the sport. These skills include both individual and team-based abilities, as well as physical and mental attributes…

Another Introduction to Floorball

By | April 29, 2023

By now I’m hoping you’re seeing floorball as a pretty fast-paced and exciting team sport that has grown in popularity around the world…

Coach Chic’s Hockey Podcast 37

By | April 21, 2023

As a coach writes me, “I’m going to be coaching a u19 Girls team this year.  We start our camp in Lake Placid soon — eating, sleeping and training in the Olympic Center, with plenty of team bonding.  Any suggestions?”

Background Skills for Performing Higher Level Tactics

By | March 29, 2023

A coach from Michigan emails to ask for help with one-against-one situations for his Pee Wee level team…

A Misuse of the Hockey Term “Checking”

By | March 9, 2023

Almost every time I ask a group of young players to define the term “checking”, they will blurt out something like, “Smash ’em into the boards!” However…

A Sample Hockey Practice Plan

By | February 13, 2023

Before anyone thinks the following is going to be just for coaches, I want to point-out that I’ll be sharing some of my thinking behind the drills I’ll list.  Hopefully then, a lot of this will prove valuable to older hockey players and to parents of younger ones…

I Just Found These Old Hockey Game Notes

By | January 27, 2023

If there’s a difference between my old coaching schedule and those of most members, it’s that my high school guys started way back in June only to leave me at the American Thanksgiving, while my youngest teams were just getting underway in the early fall…

How Pro Hockey Scouts Think

By | December 30, 2022

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