Reply To: Diary of a Season 2011-12

[hockeygod]

Tom,

Once again, excellent points in your response. It depends on where your players 'are' as to how long it would take to completely embrace Total Hockey; unfortunately we as coaches often only work with close to the same people for a season (7 months – the hockey season) – sometimes two seasons – before sweeping changes to the core personnel… and then it's back to (almost?) square one, depending on turnover!

Total Hockey is not something that can be successfully implemented, understood and executed in a short time frame. It is a philosophy that first the coach and his / her staff need to come to terms with; then they try to infect the players. It could take as long as 4 years or more… and which coach has that luxury?

Nice to hear that all players get a chance to play all roles / all four O and D principles in practice even though you are 'specializing' your team system for playoffs. It's not like they will 'forget' Total Hockey by moving away from the Tsunami; but this is giving your players the best platform for success. That is good coaching!

My preference would also be to play Total Hockey but as you say, most (99.9%?) of the coaches out there are in this situation!

Continued good luck against Red Deer.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."