T4 – Cougar Pounce Forecheck
Key Points:
Constant pressure from the defensive side. Back pressure, Offensive and defensive 2-1's. Man on box behind in Dzone. 2-2-1 forecheck when close pressure or 1-3-1 when offense has total control with skates up ice.
Description:
This system combines the left wing lock and the torpedo. There are two offensive forwards the C and RW. The left wing plays like a left wing in the offensive end and a left D in the defensive zone and lines up on lw at the faceoff. The LW and RD stay on their side of the ice. The right D plays like a RW in the offensive zone and a RD in our end. The LD is really a middle D and is on the puck side in the offensive end and is the support player low in the defensive zone, always on the puck side. The RW and C cover the points in the D zone and force the puck on the attack. They can forecheck either in a 2-2-1 or a 1-3-1 formation. There are always 4 players on the attack.
I used a large rink on the floor to go over the system and my trainer took a video of the instruction. The video was taken early in the season before an exhibition game in the Olympic Oval. The videos are in the team play section of the ABC site.
https://www.hockeycoachingabcs.com/videos/watch/cougar-pounce-system-instruction-using-a-2-2-1-forecheck/
This video shows a clip of the forecheck in a game sitution.
https://www.hockeycoachingabcs.com/videos/watch/cougar-pounce-2-2-1-forecheck-video/
This is the system we used when I coached the Women's Varsity Team at college for five seasons. I left to coach with the Red Bulls in Austria as the all time winning percentage leader of 71% and all time wins at that time. So it is an effective system. I joined the Red Bulls and found that Pierre Page was using almost the identical system with the pro team there.
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