Fire White Practice Twenty-one and Twenty-two
Fire White Practice Twenty-one
Tonight is the last practice before the start of the regular season. It is unusual to get 21 practices before starting but we are still working under the time line when the AAA league started mid September. It is good for player development and we got in 4 exhibition games and another 4 games in a pre-season tournament.
Practice focus will be on shooting, passing, pass receiving skills and then review of power play and defensive zone coverage. Game situations will be practice with a transition game and a 1-1, 2-1 drill. We will finish with a speed scoring shootout.
Captains will be named and they will lead the creation of our Team Covenant at the Hotel during our road trip.
Coaches met with every player for about ten minutes at the front of the bus and went over our forecheck, defensive zone coverage and the middle drive. We got to know them a little better and answered any questions they have. I have a coaching board with magnets and it is a great visual three dimensional tool. We have the players move the magnets to show us the team play ideas.
In Leduc hotel now. Won 5-1 and we didn't score until the game was half over and we had about 35 shots. Players stayed at it and finally started getting results for their effort. Tonight the captains led a meeting to develop the Team Covenant. We play in St. Albert tomorrow afternoon.
Captains led the meeting to develop the 'Team Covenant', they said the meeting went really well and they have come up with 10 points that set the goals and the rules for our team. The captain will laminate it and bring the covenant to every game. It will be referred to constantly all season.
The second game was close for the first period. Shots were 9-8 and our goalie was better than theirs. We scored 5 in the second and two more in the third and won 9-2. We don't play for two weeks when we play a team that we only beat 5-3 and were behind 2-0 after the first two minutes.
I have never had a girl's team that passes this well and everyone is so relentless winning loose pucks and back-pressuring the puck carrier. The most shots against so far is 24 and most games it is under 20 shots against. Usually you rely on 2-4 players to score in girl's hockey but every forward on this team can score and that is why we have 57 GF and 13 GA in our first ten games.
This week we have Core Conditioning on Monday, Tuesday off, 90 minute practices W-Th-Fri, Sat off, practice Sunday. The sports mental trainer meets with team team before the Wednesday practice. So it is a full week.
Video links showing defensive zone coverage.
Defensive Zone coverage – a good explanation.
These are clips from the Olympic Canada-USA game with a description of the dzone coverage.
Practice Twenty-two
Wednesday the team has a Mental Training session and then a 90 minute practice. Monday they did Core training. The practice will have a lot of game situations with skills and compete the main goal. We don't play this weekend so it is a long time between games and game situations are needed. There will be one 1-1, 2-1 drill where the defense has to have a tight gap.
Lots of volume in the practice with skating, passing, shots, game situations. The players were really tired by the end.
'The Game is the Greatest Coach'
'Enjoy the Game'