Reply To: 2010-2020 Coach Discussion Forum

[Tom Molloy]

How to Improve Drills and Design Effective Practices

This site has hundreds of great drills and there are countless great ones out there but the question is; are they teaching or practicing what we are trying to accomplish?

Most shooting drills practice only the first shot. The shooter goes down, shoots and then back to the line-up. The goalie gets square, makes the save and then gets ready for the next shot. This may be ok in the first few minutes of warm-up but is it helping shooters score and goalies control the rebounds? Probably not.

The most important play after the save is who gets the rebound. Good scorers follow their shots and get second shots or are the first one to loose pucks. Good goalies control rebounds by either freezing the puck or directing it to a safe area or if they are really good to a teammate. A better way to do a shooting drill would be to have the attacker follow the shot for a rebound then get the first rebound if it is in the scoring area. This would cause the goalie to put the puck to a safe area or freeze it.

On situation drills like a 1-1, 2-1 etc. the defender has to box out the shooter and player going to the net and take their stick. Allow the play to continue until the puck is frozen, in a safe area or in the net. A practical way for a coach to do this is to give an appropriate time limit to each rep so the players can make the rush and then complete the play. This will help develop the skills like following the shot, boxing out the shooter and taking the stick, the goalie controlling the rebound.

The same principle applies to progressing from situation drills to transition games that only use one puck. After working on the situation in a drill progress to a transition game where the next players give passive support and the defenders pass to them to start a new rep. Then teach offensive and defensive support by having the players come into the zone and cover a player on defense and support the puck on offense. There are lots of transition games examples on this site. A few of the better ones are done by the former Detroit coach Mike Babcock where they do a continuous 2-1 and then continuous 2-2 which end up being a 3-3 and then a 4-4 at each end.

You can add a dump in to work on the forecheck and breakout or regroups to work on neutral zone offense and defense. Transition games can also be cross ice both teams shooting on the same goalie at one end.

Hockey Canada brought Erkka Westerlund a two time Finnish Olympic coach to write a booklet on transition games and make a video. He did a great job of this but I seldom see transition games used in practices, this is too bad because they are the most realistic practice activity besides full ice game. Transition games are basically changing on the go to create whatever situation the coach wants to practice.

It is like when I went to school and took French for 3 years and we only learned how to say words, spell them and write sentences but we NEVER SPOKE. It was a very poor way to learn French and when I went to Paris last year I could say thank-you and please and one word or short phrase but I couldn't converse or understand when they spoke. We have to be careful that our practices are not just part-part-part all of the time. Humans learn in patterns and practice activities have to compliment how we learn.

Horst Wein, a famous international soccer/football and field hockey coach worked with clubs like Barcelona and reverses everything. First they play a SAG with a rule like all passes must be made with the non dominant foot. This is to create a 'need to know' and then after the players have struggled with the skill they do 'corrective exercises' that help players learn to pass with that foot. Then they play again with the same rule. The concept here is that now the players are doing the corrective drills to solve an 'actual problem that they have which is How do I make non dominant foot pass.' This automatically involves the learner and isn't just another drill to fill up the practice time. It also incorporates 'whole learning' because it begins and ends with the 'GAME'.

So creating a need to know, doing corrective drills, engaging the learner, incorporating everything into game situations and making drills as game like as possible are all important components in developing players who can succeed in regular games.

'The Game is the Greatest Coach'
'Enjoy the Game'