Reply To: Coaching philosophy

[Tom Molloy]

I will stay on this theme instead of posting more material. I found a 8 gb thumb drive for $10 at the Source so I have spent the last few days gathering all of the videos from the two computers and portable hard drive and putting them all on this little drive. I think I have done it. I also put on an ebook that a Finnish coach made for Juuso of Book 1. It is handy having everything in one little and very portable tool. About 300 short videos and also a few of my favorites like Bob Murdoch as a guest speaker at my college coaching class.

Some Thoughts.

I decided it was time to make a decision after waiting for the Czech club to get funding to pay for me to be the U20 assistant and coach mentor for the youth coaches. I accepted the head coach position for the girls U18 team. I am wondering if they will have the simple mechanics of holding the stick properly.

I coached the college women for 5 years and the elite league for 2. I found that a lot of the college girls were bottom hand dominant. There is a video with my asst Jim leading small groups handling the puck around their body and only a few could do it well. If you control the stick with your bottom hand you can only handle the puck on the forehand and things like a toe drag are nearly impossible.

So this simple mistake of poor early instruction on the mechanics of holding the stick impaired their development in all of the stick skills – puck handling, passing, shooting. Which means they can never become elite; no matter how hard they workout or how great they skate.

Here are some thoughts on the essential building blocks. I will expound on the obvious but the old saying "common sense is a most uncommon thing" applies to hockey as well.

1. Players need solid mechanics to learn stick skills and skating skills.
2. When learning individual technique everyone should have a puck and not wait in line for their turn. Reps are the key. (with correct mechanics). This applies to shooting skills as well.
3. Every individual skill learned should move into a gamelike situation.
4. Partner skills such as passing should be done with one partner and then multiple partners all at the same time and all over the ice. Not waiting for a turn in a lineup where you make a few passes then move onto the next drill. These skills should also move to a competitive situation so they can be performed under pressure.
REPS with proper technique.

In other words there are NO LINEUPS with individual and partner skills. The coach has to create situations where everyone is active at the same time. Develop ROUTINES like the skating routing Gaston uses at the start of each session. Do this for all the individual and partiner skills. Give them a name and let the players "get at er" I am thinking of setting routines to music (guys wouldn't like that but I think the girl's would)

The only time players should line up is when they need recovery time between reps. Hockey is an anaerobic game and the w/r ratio in drills, games and transition games is very important. If players are waiting longer than the recovery time needed then the activity is a poor coaching choice.

A.I.M.
Activity 80% (if the activity is anaerobic the recovery is part of this)
Instruction 10%
Maintenance 10%

We are teaching a game, so smaller games that isolate situations we want the players to experience and understand how to solve are the essential building block to development of the "Complete Player."

We are competing with video games which give the kid's competitive situations that demand instant problem solving or they are kicked back to the beginning. We need to make practice exciting for them so they want to come to the rink instead of more "screen time."

That is our challenge in hockey and other sports. It isn't to produce elite athletes, (some will always rise to the top where that can become the focus.) It is to produce good citizens who are fit and who have learned to work with other people toward a common goal. Sports can help do that and video games can't.

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