Reply To: Diary of a Season 2017-18

Team Play Review

Below are a few emails I sent to my players and their parents about how we play. We are in the Provincial Championships in a week.

Hi Team,

Please look at the six minute video we made together in Lloyminster about our forecheck. It covers the initial pressure. Remember that when we are in a loose puck battle we swarm and if they have one then we have two, them two us three. We back pressure the puck carrier and everyone backtrack to our house and defend out from there.

We will review this tonight.

Fire Alarm Forecheck

T4 – Forecheck Review
Pressure the puck carrier. Pinch on the weak side.

Team Play Review

Team this is the entire Team Play breakfast meeting we had in Lloydminster. Yesterday I sent the first 6 minutes. Today it is the entire 31 minutes. Fast forward 6' to the neutral zone.

At last nights practice we reviewed the forecheck and the offensive swarm as well as the power play.

This video doesn't have the defensive swarm that we use in loose puck battles in our end. We were 3 W 3 L until we started using both the offensive and defensive swarm. We will go over defensive swarm in practice.

There are many effective ways to play the game and 1-2-3-4-5 is how 'We Play'. We want everyone involved in the offense and the defense and in our practices both the F and D Practice all offensive and defensive situations.

This style requires the ability to read where you are on the ice in relation to the puck and your net and to know where your and the other teams player are. It takes fitness, skill awareness and commitment. It is both hard and fun to play if you love to compete and it is a very difficult style to play against because there is no time or space to do anything. The NHL team that we model our game after is Nashville.

Parents, I have included you in the email so you understand how we play in various situations. Once the puck drops there are no positions. You start in your home position and read the game from there. It is the way the game has evolved, especially over the last ten years.

Fire White Team Play https://youtu.be/KmAt-vRfWzw

Take care,
Coach Tom

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Subject: Creating Offense

I meet every Thursday morning with coaches from the women's pro Inferno, U of Calgary, Wally Kozak and some others who join in some weeks for a coaches hotstove.

Tim Bothwell, who I coached with at the U of C men's team until he went to be an asst. in the NHL condensed a 75' presentation by Nashville coach Peter Laviolette to 11' of offensive zone play. This is the kind of decision making we are striving towards and is very worthwhile for the players to watch.

Take care,
Coach Tom