Reply To: Game Intelligence / Decision Training

[hockeygod]

Wednesday night was a long one… the rink or MHA changed all of our ice times, so we were on the ice for 5+ straight hours… no breaks or floods! We had 2 sessions with U8; then 2 with U10; the last one was a combined U12 / U14 group. The 4th session overlapped the third and fifth one, so my feet were protesting by the time it was over! Unfortunately, with all these ice times back to back, we had no time to debrief (or pre-ice) the coaches, so this key aspect of coach development got away… On top of this, I was on the ice this morning with my Junior High… so I am pretty tired now! Being "on" for both the players and the coaches (and parents / association) takes a lot out of me. This week has been like a big energy vampire!

To warmup, we played a 'pinnie tag' game; then 2 variations of the 'Bucket Game'. Next we played 1 vs 1 (side by side and 45 degrees). We finished with the Spartan Box 1 vs 1 and worked our way up to 2 vs 2 and 3 vs 3 for the older kids. They loved the games! "Better than drills," they all said!

The TD of the local MHA told me tonight that he has heard nothing but positives from the players, parents and coaches; so that was nice to hear. We are trying our best to keep the kids active and learning and having fun; and to do our best on the coach development side, even with limited debriefs. Fortunately, it sounds like we will be coming back to do a follow up for them once or twice throughout the season.

Tomorrow is our last day. We have several more sessions on both ice surfaces. The ice times have been mixed up again – oh joy! John and I will focus on the Games / Creativity, but I have to also run another puck control / skating session in the middle. Two more sessions in the morning with my skill academies first… then I will be relaxing this weekend as my voice is shot and I have a sore throat… I feel like I am getting rundown. I haven't had time to work out all week – bummer.

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The ice must have been terrible with no floods in between sessions. Good to see the association was receptive to using "games to teach the game."

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