Reply To: How many drills?

[Tony]

Thanks Tom. I am always looking to learn and improve our practices.

I had a feeling I was weak on transition games having come from Mite coaching. I have to be careful running drills/sags that are too complicated at this age. Can you give me some specific skill rule games and transition games that are age appropriate?

Games we play: 3 on 3 backwards only skating or backhand shots/passes only; 3 on 3 no shot or 3 on 3 1 timers only; 3 on 2 in the offensive zone ( 1 players cannot corss middle line) and add a man by passing back to the point; multiple 1 v 1 games in the offensive zone as well.

We play a game called puck dog. All but 3 players have a puck in the offensive zone. The 3 players without pucks (puck dogs) work together to steal and score pucks. Once a player has their puck scored, they become a puck dog. Last player with their puck wins!

I need to think more about integrating player roles when designing practices in the future. That will be a challenge for me to wrap my head around. Our team is on the weak side in their age division since we play 01 level but half our players are 02s. For that reason we spend the majority of our time working on skills.