Reply To: Love for Hockey coaching ABC’S

[Tom Molloy]

I just read the sports section and there is an article about another player on the 85 team I coached for two springs. I had lost track of him. He played Jr. A and then went to Cornell. He is 27 now and has played in Europe and the AHL as well as the EHL. When the Bantam Draft was held he was 4'11".

That was quite a team. We practice ten weekends 2 x 90 min. on Sat and the same Sunday. We went in one tournament half way through and another at the start of July in Vancouver. So 60 hours of practice x 2 years. 120 hours of practice. I had Terry Johnson (ex NHL defenseman helping me along with Doug Cronk, Mike Berridge and Stewart Behie. It was a great coaching staff.

https://www.hockeycoachingabcs.com/videos/watch/dt100-continuous-1-1-with-85ers/ is a video of them playing a transition game of continuous 1-1.

Four of the five smallest players are still playing pro.

The article was about Evan Barlow. He is still small at 5'9' but is still playing and seems to love it.

Mason Raymond who was tiny as well and not drafted in the Bantam draft and considered too small to play rep hockey his first year of Bantam; so he played town hockey. Played at Minn. Duluth and now plays NHL and has been to the Stanley Cup finals.

Ryan Duncan who was also tiny and wasn't drafted. He played Jr. A and won the Hobey Baker at North Dakota. He is 5'6' now. Ryan has played in the American league and is now in Europe.

Aaron Lee wasn't drafted but played Jr. A then NCAA in Alaska and has played AHL, EHL and is now playing in Europe.

Jeremy Colliton is the biggest guy who shoots R. He was drafted in the second round, played in the World Juniors and was up and down from the Islanders to the AHL where he was a captain.

So 5 of the 9 forwards are pro players. Our D were big for their age but topped out at 5'10" or 5'11". A few of them played major junior and all but one of the team played at least Jr. A and 3 or 4 more went NCAA.

It was the same with Dany Heatley, who is 4 years older. He was another player who came to a lot of the camps I did and practiced with Korean teams who came to Calgary and hired me to coach them. Dany was small and went undrafted in the Bantam draft. He grew like a weed the year after Bantam.

So the lesson is that if you stick with it and keep improving your skills you will catch up to the big kid's and even surpass them.

I also think that was the best format for spring hockey. They could play other sports as practice was only on the weekends. The group was 11 then 12 years old which are the 'Golden Years' for learning skills. 6 hours of practice every weekend for 10 weekends is enough time to make a difference. We didn't replace practice with exhibition games.

I say in the video that this is the best practice activity. Now I think adding that the D join the rush and the F backcheck is more complete.

On Thursday I fly to Boston to do a camp in Hudson NH with former NHL player and coach Curtis Brackenbury. Curtis is also flying in a fitness coach from Poland. So I am sure I will see a lot of new ideas. I will try to get some video and share on this site. It sounds like we are staying in Cambridge.

'The Game is the Greatest Coach'
'Enjoy the Game'