Reply To: Game Intelligence / Decision Training

[hockeygod]

Tom,

I remember you mentioning this game to me in the past. Looks and sounds like an excellent way to provide focus for deep practice. Engage the students with an athlete-centred decision-training activity / game that is also fun; while providing elements to hold them accountable during a measurable challenge and then watch what happens!

During our time with the U of C women, we had early morning practice four days per week (0630-0800 – off-ice warmup from 0545-0610), then we had two mornings where we trained in the athlete weight room for 60 minutes right after (0815-0915); the two other mornings, we trained in the gymnasium – playing our Reaction Games and / or our Smart Transitional Games for 60 minutes. We often imposed silence upon our gymnasium workouts. It was great… you could hear breathing and the squeak of sneakers on the hard wood. Peaceful. We joked that we could even hear them think and sweat! They were so intense and engaged on the activities / games at hand! We often comment we wish we had the foresight to shoot video from above as we would have captured lots of beautiful footage!

We will invite you out to one or two of our sessions (on ice and off) so you can see what we do. We cover all of these components in our games and methodology of teaching. I think you will see how we have created an exceptional learning culture when we have been granted the ultimate authority to teach in our manner without having to 'work under a teacher' who doesn't understand our methodology / or doesn't teach discipline and life lessons consistently. When we have to 'sell it' to less experienced leaders, and they don't show complete buy-in, you can 'sense' the apprehension in the kids… and we have to spend more time on the discipline as we don't achieve the best 'mental flow' / deep practice we could if it was 'our group.'

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