Reply To: Diary of a Season 2011-2012: The Plan

I got an email today from a coaching friend who is starting evaluations. He asked me how I would do them. Based on my work with some associations and running some evaluation camps for college here is my reply.
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Hi ………….,

Good to hear from you.

I am doing some spring hockey with younger kids and still doing my 12-14 yr. skills group twice a week for a school………………………..

When I evaluate I like to look at skating and how they play in the 3 game situations and 4 playing roles.

0 – loose puck, do they get there and win those battles for the puck and rebounds

1- Offense
Role 1 – individual offensive skills – puck handle, pass, shoot, take a pass. See the ice, make the easy play right away.
Role 2 – team offensive skills – face the puck, give a target, get open, give and go, create 2 on 1's, go to the net, D join the play.

2- Defense
Role 3 – ind. defensive skill – play from the defensive side, angle with stick on the puck and body on body, stick in the lanes, shinpads in the shooting lanes, back check, tie up sticks in the slot, etc.
Role 4 – team defensive skill – play from the defensive side, recongnize who to cover, head on a swivel, communicate, etc.

I like to rank players in groups according to their last season. i.e. group of 40

– Break them into 8 groups of 5 with at least 2 evaluators watching each group and only that group. Rank them group 1-8.
– players have numbers.
– evaluators must constantly move players up and down during the practice (on ice coaches or players know nothing of what is happening). So in group 2 one player must be moved to group 1 and when this happens group 1 must move one player down to group down to 2.
– everyone turn in the new groups to the head evaluator who compiles them for the next practice and makes new teams.
– head evaluator should flag a players name if it seems like the evaluations are putting a player way above or below their previous ranking (is it improvement, illness, injury or politics)
– at least 4 practices are needed.

Tryout Pracitces should incluce warm up drills, shooting and passing,
– SAG's (I have had as many as 4 games going at once with 2 nets on each goal line and a tournament)
– Transition games where you can watch the entire play starting with a continuous 1-1 where the F has to compete for the loose puck and D must make the breakout pass. Move to up to a continuous 3-2 if you have at least 8 D and 12 F.
– Full ice games of 3-3, 4-4, 5-5 with a whistle going every minute. Players pass back to the goalie and change on the go. (this gives about 50" shifts)

Not scientific but that is how I would run the tryout. All the age groups can do basically the same thing. Rotate which group the evaluators do each time so they see all the kid's and the evaluators could do a report card on their group of 5 the last 30 min.