Game Intelligence / Decision Training

[hockeygod]

Ducks, er, Hawks trying to push pace in hockey playoffs

Kris Anderson, The Portland Tribune, Apr 25, 2012

Mike Johnston saw the similarities: speed, tempo, rhythm. But the Portland Winterhawks general manager/coach wanted a closer look. In September, he traveled to Eugene to visit Chip Kelly and his Oregon Ducks.

Kelly's squad played like Portland; they were both dynamic, pushed the pace and wore teams down. But how did Kelly prepare his team to play that way on Saturdays? That was why Johnston watched a September practice.

Now, the Hawks hold a 2-0 lead in the Western Hockey League conference finals over the Tri-City Americans. The series has reflected likeness of both teams. It's a reason each game has gone to overtime. But each time Portland has outlasted Tri-City. Maybe endurance is why the Hawks currently have the edge.

“I talk to buddies that I have on other teams,” Portland center Brendan Leipsic said, “and we do a lot more reps than some other teams. (Strength and conditioning coach Rich Campbell) and (Johnston) do a good job making sure we stay in shape.”

Since joining the Hawks in 2008, Johnston has pushed his team from the cellar to the upper echelon of WHL teams. They went 11-58-2-1 in the season prior to his arrival, to vying for a spot in the WHL finals just four seasons later.

Watching one Hawks practice will help explain the reason for Johnston's success. There is a determined emphasis on conditioning. He demands that drills are conducted with speed. The players prepare like they perform.

It's been a formula for success, and one partly shaped by Kelly.

“The reason I wanted to go down and see Chip and the Ducks practice is because they play a similar style to the way we play,” Johnston said. “They like up-tempo. They like to play at a high, high pace. So what we took from that practice was a lot of our habits that we do now in practice.”

The Hawks coach always created an intense atmosphere at practice, but after watching Kelly, he saw changes he could make.

“I wanted the pace to be high, but I saw a different level down there,” Johnston said. “I saw how short they ran their drills. Maybe we were running our drills a little too long. They did a lot of their practice to music. We've tried that sometimes with our guys, just to give a change.”

Portland prides itself on winning the third period. But it's had to win more than that to escape the first two games against Tri-City. The Hawks have drawn on their tempo in practice, and their endurance has helped determine the outcome.

"When you get into overtime, it's all about conditioning,” Portland defenseman Derrick Pouliot said. “We had a lot of good chances in overtime. So I definitely think our conditioning needs to be where it is.”

After a three-day break, the series resumes with Portland hosting games three and four at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday at the Rose Garden.

Despite the two-game advantage, Portland knows the series is far from over. Tri-City edged the Hawks for the Western Conference regular-season title, and in 10 regular-season meetings, the Americans won six times.

Little separates the two teams, and it's shown so far during their postseason meeting. If similar trends continue, the remaining games will be grueling. But that's where Portland believes it is better prepared.

Every practice is grueling. Every practice is a grind. And that's a style Kelly helped create.

“I did learn a lot from it, and how you practice is how you play,” Johnston said. “For the Ducks to be able to play with that type of tempo in their game, number one, they have to be in great shape. Number two, they have to be able to have those habits in practice. And our players are good like that. And I think we can play with a better pace than a lot of teams.”

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I coached with Mike during two of my Team Canada appointments. He is a very progressive coach. Game Intelligence Training is game-like as it offers competition exactly like a 'real' game. We play and quiz the kids during a break or afterwards. We won't give them answers (but may guide them.) Why more people don't 'practice' like it's a game – to prepare for a game… well, I'll never know.

We used loud music during our Grade 7 practices this week to force the players to be more 'heads up' and read body language / see the ice (time, space, friend, foe). The parents watching it told the teacher it was absolutely brilliant and they all noticed how much more heads up / focused their kids appeared. The rink guys asked us to turn the music down at the end as it was offending some people in the office space inside (must not have any taste in 70's / 80's music!!) so that's probably the only time we will get away with it… too bad as the kids (coaches and 70/80's parents) loved it too as we were all 'bopping to the beat'!

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

[Tom Molloy]

I also coached with Mike at the U of Calgary. He suggested to Willy Desjardins that I be added to their staff. We had coached against each other for 4 seasons in men's college hockey.

Mike now presents at a lot of coaching symposiums. He was a teacher at university and college and is a very good speaker. This is a video of his on ice presentation on using games in practice. It is in Vienna.

The explanation of why games are important in practice.

https://www.hockeycoachingabcs.com/videos/watch/d-mike-johnston-benefits-of-small-area-games/

A 25 minute demonstration of various games to use in practice.

https://www.hockeycoachingabcs.com/videos/watch/d-mike-johnson-small-games-on-ice-demonstration/

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

[hockeygod]

Sports philosophy: The case for killing the competition

JOHN ALLEMANG, Globe and Mail, Apr. 27 2012

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-case-for-killing-the-competition/article2416453/singlepage/#articlecontent

As the London Olympics draw near, the Canadian hunger for medals is becoming ravenous. The Own the Podium mentality of Vancouver 2010 exposed a passion for gold in a country that used to assert, if only half-heartedly, that just doing your best was good enough.

So with all this butt-kicking swagger redefining the national character, it may seem strange that a large swath of Canadian sport is deliberately moving away from the winning-is-everything philosophy.

All of the country’s 56 national sports bodies, under the direction of Sport Canada, are crafting long-term athlete development (LTAD) programs that value having fun and honing skills over hoisting trophies. In highly detailed documents that reflect a best-practices approach to achieving sports excellence, organizations such as the Canadian Soccer Association are spelling out a mandate for training young athletes in less openly competitive, more age-appropriate ways.

Far from making kids soft and undermining robust Canadian values, this change is part of a broader strategy to boost national performance at the highest levels. Less emphasis on winning, the theory goes, means more room for creativity and, ultimately, more world-beating skills.

How will youth sports be altered? Among the Ontario Soccer Association’s innovations for the upcoming outdoor season: Tournaments for players under the age of 8 will be replaced by one-day “festivals” where scores aren’t officially counted, teams may be blended together, players will try out different positions and play an equal amount of time irrespective of ability, team standings will be junked and no trophies will be awarded at the end. And just as important – in an ambitious youth-sports milieu where international tourneys for children as young as 7 or 8 aren’t unknown – all festivals are meant to be played locally with neighbouring teams.

“Every unnecessary minute spent in a car is time that could be spend on the pitch learning the game,” says Alex Chiet, technical director for the Ontario Soccer Association, one of the leaders in redefining sport’s role in Canadian life.

Such top-down transformation may be relatively easy to implement with the centralized bureaucracies that administer more technical minority sports such as speed skating and diving. For mass-participation sports like hockey and youth soccer, where the nature of play is determined more by deeply committed parents and the values they bring than by a national regulatory body, this means a total culture change – one that may be at odds with both the traditions of the game in Canada and the broader social message of an increasingly competitive world.

“It’s a huge mentality shift and we’re hitting it head on,” says Mr. Chiet, a New Zealander who was formerly the high-performance manager for his country’s undefeated 2010 World Cup team. “Parents may not understand how detrimental it is to overemphasize winning, so they think we’re being too politically correct. But we simply want to provide the best possible environment for the child, and winning at all costs is not what’s best.”

Winning is the easiest way to measure success in sports. But the overvaluing of victory often leads coaches to take shortcuts – favouring the best players, dumbing down technique, using fear as a motivator – that cheats players of the pleasure they might expect from sport.

Ben Deller-Usher is a 15-year-old Toronto student who walked away from the old-school style of soccer because “it was really, really boring.” He likes a pretty style of soccer where players are allowed to be creative with their ball-handling and passing. But he became frustrated when he came up against “negative tactics”: Coaches had their players kick the ball long to tall and fast teammates, which took the beauty out of the beautiful game.

He’s switched to piano lessons but hasn’t given up his soccer dreams completely. “I hope to get my coaching badges and start my own team,” he says. “My goal will be to build good players, not just try to win.”

The winning mentality has numerous drawbacks, Canada’s sports leaders say, not least that it doesn’t produce more better athletes.

“We want young players to develop basic motor skills, to learn how to control the ball, to look up and perceive what’s around them, to make decisions,” says Sylvie Béliveau, the Canadian Soccer Association’s manager of long-term player development. “For us developers of the sport, this is what is precious. But when winning is what’s important, what you hear from adults is ‘Kick it away, get rid of it.’ The fear of losing, the fear of making a mistake takes over.”

A small number of bigger or faster players can dominate this style of game, leaving the rest to stand around and lose interest. And overvaluing this physical superiority in an age-group sport also means that smaller and later-maturing players are overlooked.

“Lionel Messi is arguably the best player in the world and he was a tiny kid,” says Bobby Lennox of the York Region Soccer Association north of Toronto. “A Canadian kid that small likely wouldn’t be identified and that talent would be lost to the world.”

The Ontario soccer festivals’ model of player development, which will be extended to all players under 12, is designed to keep players more engaged with the game and help them learn technique in their teachable early years. Other countries have adopted LTAD as their norm – South Africa even uses it with their sailing program – and in a globalized sports environment, Canada has to adapt or fall further behind.

“If you look at team sport in Canada,” says Richard Way, one of LTAD’s architects, “we don’t do very well internationally.”

That sense of failure may not resonate widely with a viewing public that took a more optimistic message home from Vancouver 2010. But in a sport like soccer, where Canada should have the resources and population mix to compete globally, mediocre performances have prompted considerable self-criticism.

“The model we’ve been using is basically flawed,” Mr. Way says. “You see Canada playing Chile and marvel at the beautiful skill of the Chileans one-on-one. And you wonder what’s wrong with our national team. But it didn’t happen there. It started when they went to an under-8 tournament and their creativity was drilled out of them by parents yelling at them to kick the ball.”

Of course there are many competing models for how best to instill sports creativity and athletic achievement in the young. Ambitious parents can point to the single-minded determination embodied by Tiger Woods, Venus and Serena Williams or the Toronto Blue Jays’ precocious young third-baseman Brett Lawrie.

But such intense concentration at a young age generally does more harm than good, say the sport experts tasked with charting Canada’s long-term progress. We fixate on the successes – assuming Tiger Woods is a success in the broadest sense – but miss the burnouts who walked away from the game, the busts who peaked too early because of a narrowly defined skill set, and the all-rounders excluded from the elite pool because they failed to wow a sport’s talent spotters at the age of 6.

“We’re seeing a tremendous degree of overspecialization with kids at a young age because of their parents’ misunderstanding,” Mr. Way says. “Yet we just completed a survey of 180 Olympic athletes and the overwhelming majority began to specialize at 14 or 15 years of age, not when they were 8 or 9. The majority also ended up going to the Olympics in sports that were not their No. 1 specialty when they were 8 or 9.”

The proponents of long-term athlete development like to talk about physical literacy as a way of explaining what they’re trying to create in budding athletes – a lifelong benefit with wider applications than the simplistic version of success that a philosophy of winners (and losers) might encourage.

“Creating a better national team is definitely a goal,” says Diarmuid Salvadori, a youth soccer coach in Richmond Hill, Ont. “But it’s more important that we increase the number of players participating and make sure they enjoy it. If they enjoy playing, they’re going to stay in the game longer. And if you look at the bigger picture, this is also about having a healthier and more active Canada.”

Critics of the long-term athlete development model say that even as it touts its broader societal benefits, it is simply a gentler method of creating a more successful elite program.

“Some of us suspect that it’s become another way of talent spotting, a method of selecting out kids for hot-housing,” says Peter Donnelly, director of the Centre for Sport Policy Studies at the University of Toronto.

In an Own the Podium milieu, where athletic success fuels national pride more than it inspires participation, a sports system that promises to produce more medals may still be an acceptable social ideal. But if it also teaches young children basic athletic skills and makes their games more engaging, the net benefits could become more widespread. When was the last time that fun was a basic goal of public policy?

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

[hockeygod]

What I'm Learning About Teaching and Coaching

Beth Barz, Queen's University Women's Rugby Coach

I came across this blog on the Coaches of Canada website. I found it interesting as Beth is documenting her experiences as a coach using Game Sense. I have been collaborating with a fellow from the UK who was the Head Coach for Canada's National Rugby team. We have been sharing coaching insights and John the Colombian and I have been invited to train some of his players based in Calgary.

http://bbarz.blogspot.ca/

See her first post below!

I have a long-time interest in rugby, first learning about the inner workings of the sport from a colleague at UVIC (BC is more of a rugby hotbed than Alberta!) Stew was a strength and conditioning specialist (rest and recovery) with the All-Blacks. After traveling and teaching around the world, he has resettled in New Zealand as a PE teacher. We have met up around the world a few times since the late 1990's to share some coaching wisdom.

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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Coaches new to the games sense approach…amazing!

Wow! I have the privilege of being able to teach and evaluate coaching courses with many other amazing Rugby Ontario learning facilitators. Tonight, I was able to do one of my favourite things in coaching and attended a practice with coaches who were finalizing their NCCP coaching certifications by actively coaching a session and by being evaluated.

Firstly, it was a super experience since all three of the coaches were in a course that I co-facilitated last year. Secondly, they all did an incredible amount of learning in the games sense approach between the course and the evaluation. Finally, and most importantly, they totally bought in to a new and sometimes uncomfortable method of coaching due to it's unfamiliarity for most coaches.

The three coaches all had significantly different experiences in rugby going from one year of experiences right through to 30 plus years. They all had been coached by coaches who coached the typical way…warm-up, do some drills, finish with unopposed or semi opposed play. The typical "lots of talk by the coaches and not much work by the players" type of practice….that just isn't athlete-centred, fun or result-producing…. So, they turned the practice upside down, started with a game, asked questions of the players to set the goals of the practice and skill, broke the skill down to key points and mini practice, and then put it all back into a high intensity and extremely fun game. And, believe me, the players had fun – they were also looking forward to leaving for an overseas tour in just about a week's time. Intensity was solid and high quality work by all athletes occurred for 90-95% of the practice.

What solidified this whole experience was hearing a 30 year veteran of the game say (and I'm paraphrasing here), "This approach works. Why wouldn't I use it all the time?" And, "it's what we do in soccer…when I came back to playing rugby I went back to how I was coached long ago…this games sense approach is what we should always be doing!"

Makes my heart happy to hear this stuff. What a fabulous day in coaching!

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

[hockeygod]

Reinhart adjusts quickly to AHL, sparks Heat to win:
Centre pots goal, assist in Abbotsford playoff triumph over Toronto

Vicki Hall, Calgary Herald, May 2, 2012

Technically, junior hockey players are supposed to endure intense culture shock upon graduation to the professional ranks. The speed is supposed to be overwhelming. Same goes for the brute power of the opposition.

“Call it man strength,” Ron Sutter, director of player development for the Calgary Flames, says via cellphone from Toronto. “Definitely a different animal when it comes to kids coming out of junior.”

Max Reinhart apparently forgot to read the memo. In only his third game with the Abbotsford Heat, the Flames prospect potted his first playoff goal and added a beauty of an assist Tuesday in a 3-1 victory over the Toronto Marlies.

Buoyed by the fresh face in the locker-room, the Heat lead the second-round Calder Cup playoff series 1-0. Game 2 is slated for Thursday night at the Ricoh Coliseum.

“Max knows how to play the game,” Sutter said. “It’s obvious to see he has the hockey sense and the skills.”

In the first period, Greg Nemisz created a turnover in the neutral zone. Reinhart and Hugh Jessiman followed up and crashed the net. In the right place at the right time, Reinhart pounced on a loose puck in the pile and deposited it over Ben Scrivens. In the second period, Reinhart eluded a hit on the end boards by passing the puck to himself off the net. Embarrassing a Toronto defender in the process, Reinhart threw the puck in front to a wide-open Chris Breen. The one-timer beat Scrivens cleanly, as Breen scored his first goal since Dec. 29.

“Max can handle the physical play,” Sutter said. “He’s finished checks. He’s taken hits to make plays. He certainly hasn’t shied away from that.”

Matt Frattin got Toronto on the board at 1:27 of the third period. The Marlies pressed for the equalizer, but goalie Danny Taylor frustrated them time and time again. Guillaume Desbiens potted an empty-netter to seal the 11th victory in a row for the surging Heat.

In three games as a pro, Reinhart has three goals and four points.

“I think I’ve had a lot of help,” the Kootenay Ice graduate said, clearly intent on deflecting any praise.

That attitude has already won Reinhart respect in the Heat locker-room.

“He’s been great,” Jessiman said of his rookie centre. “He’s a confident kid. He’s been humble. He carries himself well. He thinks the game very well.”

Reinhart comes by his hockey smarts honestly as the eldest son of former Flames defenceman Paul Reinhart.

Clearly, the cerebral side of the game can be passed down from generation to generation.

“It’s his hockey brain,” Heat head coach Troy Ward said of the newcomer. “He just understands where he can find time and space on the ice. He understands how to play without the puck. He’s very much a good support player to anybody he plays with.

“We’ve seen Max in a short time score some goals at this level. That’s not a coincidence. That just has to do with his hockey intelligence and how he understands the game.”

In Reinhart’s mind, the learning has just begun.

“I guess I had an advantage from pretty early being taught the do’s and don’t’s of hockey. My dad made sure I was a full, two-way player throughout my career. It definitely helped. But now, it’s about the team you’re on.”

At this moment, Reinhart is on a team riding one heck of a winning streak at the most important time of the season.

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Reinhart comes by his hockey smarts honestly as the eldest son of former Flames defenceman Paul Reinhart.

Clearly, the cerebral side of the game can be passed down from generation to generation.

I believe it can be passed down from generation to generation – but not necessarily (primarily) through genes! Certainly, watching hockey as a kid (specifically the game played at higher levels; his dad was a pretty 'smart' player in his own right) helped him learn the game through observation and mimicking. It can certainly be trained – more easily at a younger age than starting at an older age. I think genetics does play a role so far as predisposition to body types – plus if you have active, coordinated, sporty parents, they are likely to get their kids involved in similar things – so it becomes exposure to sporting opportunities. It is SO tough to determine individual variables in the nature vs. nurture discussion! But a fascinating debate, all the same!

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

[hockeygod]

The Problem With “Gifted” Hockey Players

Alan Bass Blogger • Hockeybuzz.com • "The Psychology of Hockey" • May 7 2012

An article on Sidney Crosby called the superstar “gifted” and “innately talented.” A similar article on Max Talbot called the grinder a “hard worker” and a guy who has a “great work ethic.”

These terms are thrown around all the time in sports, specifically one that takes such unique talents as hockey does. One is an extraordinary compliment, the other is the equivalent of a participation award. Max Talbot got to where he is because he “works hard,” but Sidney Crosby, boy, oh boy, he got to his level because of a special gift that was bestowed onto him by the hockey gods.

Too bad the hockey gods (and more importantly, the hockey writers) got it backwards.

Since when is being a hard worker something to fall back on? The term “talent” has numerous definitions, including “a special, often athletic…aptitude,” while the term “gifted” means “showing natural talent or aptitude.” Unless our history books failed to tell us about the abundance of hockey games our hairy ancestors played, no one has a genetic predisposition to become a hockey superstar. That is something that is developed through – you guessed it – hard work. In essence, the aforementioned writers are suggesting that Crosby doesn’t work too hard, he just has the natural ability, while Talbot, he only got to the NHL because he spent time practicing – as if it were a detriment to his personality.

If there’s one piece of psychological research that I adore, it’s that of Stanford professor Carol Dweck, who has conducted experiments on people’s perceptions of intelligence. She finds that people who explain their abilities in terms of being developed through effort are much more likely to experience success, while those who explain their abilities from a perspective of innate talent consistently run into problems in their lives. When a young athlete is clearly having more success than all other athletes, we encourage them to think that it is because they were born with that ability, and that they are both precocious and innately gifted. This is extremely problematic, because when someone who believes they are innately talented fails, they believe that there is nothing they can do to change their luck – after all, the talent they have is the talent they were born with, and nothing can affect that. However, when the other person fails, they simply think, “I have to try harder.” Failure does not shatter that athlete’s self-esteem or perception of their abilities. It simply informs them that they have more work to do.

Looking back at Crosby, a writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette jotted a note on a blog post back in 2009, saying, “it takes a lot less innate talent to do what I do than to do what Sidney Crosby does.” While there may be an argument that genetics and innate ability can give you the predisposition to develop physical and motor talents that are involved in hockey, in reality, it takes more innate talent to be a creative writer than it does to be an athlete. Our brains are wired to have certain levels of creativity, linguistic, and artistic abilities. However, our bodies are not born with the predisposition to develop the ability to stickhandle through four bulky hockey players armed with sticks and a desire to plant you into the ice below.

Players like Crosby, Claude Giroux, Alex Ovechkin, and Steven Stamkos did not necessarily have more innate talent than a Max Talbot or a Brandon Prust. What is more likely (and not a shot at any non-superstar player, but more a psychological explanation) is that these superstar players had a higher desire to practice and improve at various abilities when they were very young, leading to the label of “precocious” or “gifted,” which gave them the opportunities to practice and play even more, on higher-level teams and against higher-level competition.

If I were Crosby, I’d rather be called a hard worker than gifted any day. Because at the end of the day, it’s these hard workers that find themselves hoisting the most coveted trophies.

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

[hockeygod]

Sports psychology: the theory of the decision training model in sport
Decision training is one way of developing intelligent athletes who can cut it in the chaotic sporting environment

Nick Grantham, Peak Performance Online (UK)

Effective decision making in sport is vital. Nick Grantham explores a system of coaching in sport that brings the science of how we think, or cognition, to the fore in sport preparation

Joan Vickers is a scientist who has been conducting research into decision making, gaze control and motor behaviour in sport for more than 30 years. Vickers has applied her decision training model successfully to a wide range of sports, including table tennis, baseball, basketball, badminton, freestyle ski jumping, golf, swimming, biathlon skiing, cycling and speed skating. This concept of decision training is linked closely with the concept of ‘CHAOS training’ see (PP286) and when combined, these have the potential to produce intelligent athletes capable of making match winning decisions in an instant.

The learning paradox

Look at box 1 and try the self-test. How did you score? Joan Vickers argues that the traditional ‘behavioural’ model of blocked repetitive practice falls well short of preparing athletes to face the demands of the sporting arena. During blocked training, specific components and skills are isolated and repetitively practiced until perfect. Lots of feedback and specific guidance is offered throughout the learning process. Success is often immediate, and this type of training is therefore appealing to many coaches and athletes. The problems with this form of coaching begin when we start to look at long-term improvements, particularly when athletes are faced with challenging conditions. How many times have you seen a highly skilled player who just can’t reproduce performances under pressure?

Although decision training places the same level of emphasis on technical and physiological development, the key difference is that the decision training approach also focuses on the development of cognitive skills that underpin high performance whilst addressing the technical and physiological components of training.

It is important to note ‘blocked’ practice (practicing the same skill over and over again with little change) still has its place; it’s just not the only type of practice used (see table 1 for overview of the two coaching styles).

Joan Vickers believes that we can coach our athletes to make tough decisions; it shouldn’t simply be left to chance. In her book, Perception, Cognition, and Decision Training: The quiet eye in action she covers the intricacies of decision-training in sport over four chapters, it’s well worth taking the time to read in full but the essential points that form the decision training model are shown in figure 1.

Decision training in sport

To give you an understanding of how to apply the decision training model, let’s use the example of a football player who needs to work on his/her ability to track the ball effectively. The first step is to identify the decision(s) that need to be made in a competitive environment. In this case, the cognitive skill to be developed is attention (tracking the ball). Step two requires the coach to design a drill with a cognitive cue to train the decision identified in step one. A cognitive trigger allows both the coach and athlete to know if the correct decision has been made whilst performing the skill or tactic.

To improve a football player’s attention, an object cue will be used as the cognitive trigger, to see if the player can track the ball effectively. The player will be asked to call out numbers or letters written on the ball before receiving a pass and taking a shot on goal. In step three, one or more of the decision training tools are used to train the decision highlighted in step one within the context of step two. In this example, the training session could be a random practice using smart combinations (the drills simulate conditions similar to those found during a match) of receiving a pass and taking the shot.

Summary

Coaching and learning go hand in hand and the best coaches have several tricks up their sleeves to assess and monitor learning. It’s easy to fall into the trap of producing athletes and players who are great at set plays, running patterns and drills but who can’t actually deliver where it counts – in competition under pressure. Decision training is one way of developing intelligent athletes who can cut it in the chaotic sporting environment.

Nick Grantham is a strength and conditioning coach who has worked with elite athletes for the past 10 years. He has trained many of the country’s elite athletes including Olympic and Paralympic finalists, and professionals in a multitude of sports.

Reference

1. Vickers, J.N., ‘Perception, Cognition, and Decision Training: The Quiet Eye in Action’, Human Kinetics 2007.

—–

I couldn't find any tables or figures or CHAOS Training (pp 286) associated with this article…

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

[hockeygod]

Developing Hockey Sense

I was asked to write an article for a local hockey magazine published by an old friend of mine, Rex Tucker. In it, I explain my evolution (since 1986) into a coach who (finally!) understands the critical significance of game-like activities, competition, and accountability.

It didn't happen overnight; it took years of experience (mainly trying new things; more often than not, failing but being open-minded enough to analyze what went wrong and try to determine how I could improve next time… dogged persistence!) So don't get discouraged when you fail (because YOU WILL FAIL – we all do!) Get up, dust yourself off and try to learn from the experience.

Do yourself a favour – if you want to accelerate your own professional development learning curve (and that of your players) as well as drastically improve the performance of your team – read this and better yet, start embracing this philosophy in your practices!

I wish someone would have helped me come to the realization (much sooner) regarding just how important these factors are. (But being young, full of piss and vinegar, still thinking like a player and 'knowing it all' (close-minded at the time!), I probably wouldn't have 'believed it' back then… one needs to mature and learn at their own pace! "You can lead a horse to water… but you can't make him drink!")

Based on my personal experience, I guarantee that by embracing this approach, you will become a better coach, your players will not only learn and become better while applying their skills and decisions within realistic activities, they will love it as they will have fun competing!

Developing Hockey Sense

Dean Holden, April 2012

One of the most coveted traits for hockey players is hockey sense. When combined with hockey’s fundamental skill set (skating, puck control, passing and receiving, shooting and checking), hockey sense is what separates the very best from the rest. Its essence lies in one’s ability to anticipate offensive and defensive transitions while under game conditions (pace / pressure / support / competition / fitness / accountability / consequences) and make the best decisions available. An elite athlete, then, is one who can properly execute technical skills and demonstrate tactical thinking (hockey sense) with the head up, at speed, under pressure, even while fatigued, and ultimately perform in a consistent manner.

Athletes are not born with hockey sense; it is a learned skill – and fortunately everyone has the capacity to learn! Is hockey sense teachable? Yes! So how does one teach it? Read on…

In the late 1980’s, John McNeil coached a local (Calgary) Midget AA team that had a stellar year. Halfway through the year, I watched three of his practices to see what wisdom I could glean. I was expecting to find `the ultimate drill’ but to my amazement, each shared the same routine: he did a 10-minute passing and shooting warm up, then he created two teams and played shinny for almost an hour! He operated the time clock (keeping score) and only provided feedback at the end of practice. The kids changed when tired and ‘policed’ the normal rules of the game themselves. For consequences, the losing team skated with pucks while the winners cheered them on.

To an outside observer, it looked like they were ‘merely’ playing shinny with little outside (adult) interference or teaching. I was disappointed because I expected the ‘secret’ to take the form of drills. “Weren’t traditional start-and-stop or flow ‘drills’ the ultimate truth? Was he crazy?” I wondered if he ever really ‘practiced’ in the traditional sense.

Twenty five plus years later, I finally came to recognize he was far ahead of the accepted coaching culture. I was too naïve to think there were ‘better’ ways to coach outside what I had experienced as a junior/university player and young coach moving through the ranks of the N.C.C.P. and Hockey Canada certification. McNeil had indeed found ‘The Grail’: ‘The Game was teaching The Game’ and his kids sure had fun honing their skills and hockey sense while practicing; reaping the benefits of improved performance… and winning!

In 1992, my assistant coach, Colin Patterson (Gordon Jukes winner) taught me an activity with our Junior A team using a game-like sequence involving a series of line rushes (breakouts, attacks and regroups: 3 vs. 0, 3 vs. 1, 3 vs. 2). Twenty to thirty minutes each practice, sometimes more, Colin had two teams take turns competing against each other and kept score; holding the losing team accountable. The kids loved it! An additional benefit to these decision training repetitions was the built-in (disguised) conditioning!

During my time with Team Canada’s Men’s team in the mid-to-late 1990’s, we had long stretches of practice without any games (four to six weeks), so we had to create game-like activities to keep our competitive edge. Tom Renney and Mike Johnston were masters at designing games that included measurable competition and consequences. In addition to competitive 1 vs. 1 and 2 vs. 2 situations in small space, we played a lot of tournament-style games cross-ice (3 vs. 3) and modified full-ice games (4 vs. 4 and 5 vs. 5). Needless to say, the men loved the element of competition!

Around the same time, Erkka Westerlund (Finland) and Slava Lenar (Czech Republic) each did a one-year coaching exchange at Hockey Canada; resulting in two excellent applied coaching manuals emphasizing the principle of transition (“Transition: From Game to Practice” and “Transition: Defense to Offense”). See Hockey Canada’s “Breakaway Store” website:

http://www2.hockeycanada.ca/breakaway/cbreakaway-p1.html

During the late 1990’s at U of C, Tim Bothwell designated the first practice of each week a ‘Red vs. White’ day; we kept score and the losing team bought the winners a Gatorade, or another fun outcome. The kids loved Mondays! During the Christmas break, Tim invited SAIT to come ‘play’ during our practice time. Each school took turns on the PP/PK (using the time clock and scoreboard). The coaches officiated and those days were hotly contested. It was a great way to elevate intensity/simulate game conditions (make decisions under pressure).

In 2007, Tom Molloy provided me with his coaching book, “Hockey Coaching ABC’s”, detailing a wealth of game-like situations incorporating anticipation/transition games. In my opinion, it is the current ‘Gold Standard’ of applied coaching manuals; specifically to replicate game-like transition situations.

(www.hockeycoachingabcs.com).

Tom’s website also provides a free forum to ask questions and share ideas.

Experience has made me a firm believer in the value of ‘playing the game’ as the number one teaching tool to train hockey sense. The more one can play under game-like conditions – practicing (succeeding AND failing) while making decisions under pressure – the better prepared they will be to cope with the stresses of real competition.

Moving forward, I challenge all coaches to provide at least one competitive game / situation per practice; lasting at least 1/3 of your total ice time… or more! Don't forget, you must include age-appropriate accountability to enhance the learning and 'complete' the competition cycle!

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

[hockeygod]

A hockey coach’s indefensible defence

Roy MacGregor, Globe and Mail, May 27, 2012

“Give the game back to the players.”

Herb Brooks used to say this often before his death in a car accident in 2003.

The quotable coach of the Miracle on Ice U.S. men’s hockey team that won the gold medal at Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1980 came to despair the way in which overcoaching and interference were destroying the entertainment value of the game.

It was so bad in the years leading up to the 2004-05 NHL owners’ lockout – neutral-zone trapping, left-wing locks, wide-open hooking and holding – that the league, to its credit, used the break to rethink the game, start calling obstruction penalties and open up the ice to speed and skill.

Brooks would have approved.

It is hard to know, however, just what he would think of the NHL team he once coached, the New York Rangers, and what has become of the once-new NHL in the spring of 2012. The players have again lost the game.

As former Toronto Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn – a firm believer in attack hockey – used to say: “It’s a great game, but coaches find a way to stop it.”

The New York Rangers, the East’s top team in the regular season, made it to Game 6 of the playoffs’ third round by playing a game never before seen, where everyone on the ice plays defence, blocks shots, collapses to the net and, if necessary, plays goal along with Henrik Lundqvist. No name has yet stuck – blockey, muskox defence, six goaltenders? – but none of them are said with any affection. There were few tears shed in the hockey world when the Rangers fell Friday night to more skilled and adventurous New Jersey Devils.

Even so, Rangers head coach John Tortorella’s redefinition of defensive hockey had already proved successful enough that there is sure to be copycat teams. Whatever works one year in the NHL trends the next.

The thing is, defence lends itself to coaching; offence, not so much. You can teach a player how to block a shot; you cannot teach a player how to find the magic that puts a shot past a goaltender.

“Coaching offensively is too hard,” long-ago Toronto Maple Leafs coach Hap Day once confessed. “You can give them a plan of attack, and the situation for the plan may never come up in the game. But defence, now: Think of all six men on the ice doing the job on defence …

{I say BS… you CAN teach offense… coaches don't know how – blaming 'Nature' – and / or they can't be bothered spending the time to do this ('Nature') – granted, at the pro level, it is about winning not development… but why isn't this a priority at the AHL / ECHL affiliate level? – Dean}

“Of course, you have to have the proper type of player to handle that approach – or make them into the proper type.”

{Be open-minded; have an incredible passion for the game; a strong work ethic; a competitive streak and then you have "…the proper type of player to handle that approach. – Dean}

And that pretty much sums up the situation in New York.

“We’re not a fancy team,” Tortorella said on Friday. “We really aren’t. We’re a straight-ahead hockey club.”

Tortorella claims that critics of the Rangers’ style of play “box me in the wrong way.” As coaches, he maintains, “we try to get out of their way” when gifted players go on the offensive.

He was speaking that day about Chris Kreider, the Boston College star who joined the Rangers for the playoffs and instantly showed an offensive flash. His five goals are a new NHL record for a player who has yet to see a regular-season game.

Tortorella did allow that Kreider needs work on his defensive game, which will have to come later. If they gave him too much right away, the coach admitted, “We might screw him up.”

Kreider’s progress next season will be interesting to watch.

Some have suggested that the surprising success of the L.A. Kings, an eighth-place team now in the final, can be traced to a midseason coaching change to Darryl Sutter, who loosened the strings. It may also be that Sutter simply hasn’t had the time to micromanage his team.

Several former head coaches have spoken out in the past about the modern control-freak era of NHL coaching. “The game is way overcoached,” Ted Nolan said. “Just let guys be who they are. Don’t try and get into their heads and psyches. Let the players play.” Guy Carbonneau said “systems” played as low as novice hockey were producing “robotic players.” John Paddock suggested an end to coaches being able to communicate with other coaches positioned high above the ice.

Players will say privately that there are now so many coaches on a team – the head coach, a handful of associate and assistant coaches behind the bench, coaches high above sending messages down and video coaches ready for them between periods – that they can barely take a shift in a game without someone criticizing it.

A poll this week by the Environics Institute for The Globe and Mail showed that a vast majority of Canadians, nearly nine out of 10 in the general audience, are open to changes in the game they love so long as the changes make the game safer.

Perhaps they would also approve of changes that would make the game more interesting to watch.

Toe Blake and Punch Imlach won a great many Stanley Cups standing all alone behind the players’ bench. Eddie Johnston, when he was coaching Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr in Pittsburgh, said his coaching strategy was simple: “I just opened and closed the door.”

That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it underlines rather nicely what Herb Brooks was saying.

“Let the talent talk,” Brooks would argue.

“Give the game back to the players.”

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

[hockeygod]

Brunt on Lidstrom: Great decision-maker

Stephen Brunt, Sportsnet, May 31 2012

Some of us will always worship at the church of Bobby Orr.

It is in part a generational thing — the greatest athletes in our most impressionable years are the ones that grow even greater in memory — and it is in part a reflection of the undeniable truth that Orr played defence like no one before him and no one since. He was a one-off genius, a revolutionary who single-handedly redefined the possibilities of his position, even while hobbled by the knee injuries that abbreviated his career.

A more objective analysis might include the fact that Orr’s scoring statistics were inflated, as were those of others who played in the era, by the 1967 expansion and the subsequent watering down of the National Hockey League talent pool, followed by the further dilution precipitated by the birth of the World Hockey Association.

But in any case, numbers only partially tell the tale. If there were someone still alive who had seen the great and innovative Eddie Shore in action, they’d no doubt tell you the same thing: you had to be there to understand just how good he really was.

Nicklas Lidstrom, who announced his retirement Thursday after 20 seasons in the NHL, all with the Detroit Red Wings, wasn’t that kind of player at all. For the most part, he coloured inside the lines. On Detroit teams that stressed collective success over individual flair, he was the embodiment of the organizational philosophy.

A relatively unheralded third-round pick — that’s the Detroit Way, as well — he wasn’t jaw-droppingly fast, like a Paul Coffey, he didn’t have Al MacInnis’s slapshot, or Scott Stevens’ intimidating physical presence. In a greatest-defencemen-of-all-time skills competition, it’s hard to say what Lidstrom might have won — unless it included a hockey IQ test.

That’s the core of it right there: Lidstrom did everything right. Blessed with the necessary physical talent, blessed with good health (and committed to his own conditioning), the success of Lidstrom’s career-for-the-ages was rooted mostly between his ears. Given his longevity, you can argue that he made more good hockey decisions, while playing at the highest level of the game on a team that was always competitive, than any other player in history — with the possible exception of Wayne Gretzky.

Maybe that’s not the same thing as being the greatest defenceman in history. Again, we’ve all got our preferences.

But what else do his numbers add up to? Twenty years, seven Norris trophies (and you can argue he deserved more), the last of those at age 41, an unbroken string of playoff appearances with one franchise that encompassed his entire long and remarkably consistent Red Wings tenure, and only 40 games missed due to injury.

Maybe it would have played out differently if he had landed somewhere else — you can make that case with nearly any star in any sport. But there’s no arguing with the fact that playing through an era in which the style of game shifted dramatically several times, in which players were bigger and stronger and fitter than in the nostalgic past, in which the coaching was better, and the talent, drawn from a global base, was better than back in the Good Old Days, Lidstrom was at the top of his game, and at the top of the game, for two full decades.

Every minute of every game of Lidstrom’s career is preserved for all to see, unlike those stars of the pre-television era, unlike even Orr, most of whose great moments with the Boston Bruins were simply erased.

But 30 years hence, those multiple generations of hockey lovers who came of age between 1991 and now, and who saw Lidstrom at his long, sustained peak, will be saying the same thing to impressionable youths who don’t quite get it.

Sure, you can see him on a screen, you can see the games, see the Stanley Cups, see the way he operated. But to really understand how great Nicklas Lidstrom was, you really had to be there.

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

[hockeygod]

Having Fun? Joy and Sadness in Children's Sports…

By Jim Schmutz, ASEP Executive Director, 03/19/2012 Article originally posted December 2010

American Sport Education Program (ASEP) founder Rainer Martens wrote a book more than three decades ago titled Joy and Sadness in Children’s Sports. The gist of the work was that organized, adult-structured and ruled sport experiences offer the opportunity for far less intrinsic enjoyment for kids than the neighborhood pick-up games kids used to engage in on a daily basis.

Though he regretted its arrival, Martens foresaw the present era of formalized sport for children four years of age on up. Play as we knew it—spontaneously devised, self-policed games among youngsters using whatever equipment was available—lost favor as unsafe, unfair, and most of all unsupervised by parents. With more mothers working away from home and unavailable to monitor activities of their own children and youngsters in the neighborhood, many parents preferred their kids to be placed in structured play environments under the watchful eyes of adults. It was reassuring to drop Jason and Jessica off to join their similarly uniformed teammates in the mighty midget league where coaches and administrators could keep watch, liability waivers were signed, and parental responsibility could be abandoned for a few hours a week.

Of course, some moms and more dads take things a whole lot more seriously. It wouldn’t do for Bridget and Brad to be just one of the kids, they need special attention and instruction to determine if that latent athletic talent (that they just know they have) can be brought to its full potential. Special, high-priced instructors and costly and time-consuming travel teams are essential, and anyway their kids want to do it, they say. Parents of young athletes that were unable to afford such tutoring and trip expenses had to hope their kid(s) impressed the team sponsor or someone affiliated with the program enough to be provided financial assistance.

So, in youth sports today, how does one define what is meant by having fun? Is it appropriate to cling to the idyllic perspective of the good ol’ playground days? Should the control and formalization insisted upon by parents, coaches, administrators, and even psychologists be met with a shrug of the shoulders, seen as an inevitable consequence of cultural, technological, and even legal changes? Or should we broaden our view of what can be fun to kids rather than judging from our own perspective?

If one accepts the notion that there’s no turning back the clock to a time when play ruled the day, then the focus can be placed on how organized sport can be as enjoyable as possible for the participants. And, along with that we can agree that there can be various degrees of fun experienced according to each situation and individual. Perhaps most importantly we can be more optimistic that every ball field and court won’t be replaced by virtual reality games on mobile electronic devices any time soon.

Surveys of athletes, parents, coaches, and administrators often produce unclear results or the inevitable outcome due to the phrasing of items in those inventories. For example, a poll of 4th-8th grade football and girls basketball players listed 11 choices, among them having fun and being with friends. So, is the fact that respondents almost unanimously cited those two motives for participating in sport particularly enlightening? Not at all. Just think back to deals that you struck with sore losers in the sandlot: “Okay, you win if you promise to keep letting us use your bat.” Winning was always secondary to keeping the games going. Yet, those that reviewed the findings were somehow astonished that winning ranked low among choices provided.

This is nothing new. We live in a constant state of contradiction. For many years adults have sought to rid youth sports of scoreboards, while at the same time we have seen expanded national television coverage of the Little League World Series and its “champion.” Adults worry that kids on losing teams won’t have fun or will suffer irreparable damage to their self-esteems. Yet, ironically, kids and their parents keep score regardless of whether an official tally is kept. They know that outcomes are determined by who scores the most runs, points, or goals. What are missing are additional, meaningful measures of success that are given similar value. And misguided attempts such as participation trophies aren’t the solution.

So, now that they’ve “protected” children from the dangers of the playground, they also seek to prevent any adverse outcome in the more structured sport setting. Thus, the advent of the every-kid-needs-a-trophy syndrome. This adult devised solution to what a vocal coalition of parents, administrators, and sport psychologists discern to otherwise be the zero sum game (winner +1, loser -1) of traditional sport competition is meaningless to the children, themselves, except when it comes time to clean the clutter of participation awards from their bedroom closets. Coaches and parents who ignore this trend and use sport to teach important life lessons provide hope for reclaiming the inherent virtues of sport participation. One of the more recent adult-conceived interventions in youth sports has the worthy goal to “inspire players of all levels to reclaim the pure enjoyment of the game…” An athletic wear company, youth sports alliance, and key sports leaders formed a coalition last summer to create a set of guidelines designed to ensure more joy, better teamwork, and clean competition in youth sport. Perhaps such formal statements and provisions can be useful and certainly reflect a group’s good intentions, but too often such pronouncements lack comprehensive grass roots implementation strategies to positively impact young athletes in a significant, tangible way. Here’s what we propose as an alternative to grown-ups that govern youth sports granting more gratuitous awards and setting additional guidelines intended to steer kids toward good fun and sportsmanship. We suggest a short list of simple measures for adults:

• Recognize that “fun” connotes different meanings among young athletes and among adults, and an even more disparate definition between those two groups. Work with the kids to define and understand what fun means to each of them.

• Encourage kids to “play” and provide opportunities and settings in which they can do so. And, in conjunction with this, refrain from filing a lawsuit should a child return home from the sandlot or playground with a bloody nose or tears in the eyes.

• Support recreation and school sports programs’ efforts to institute quality coaching education programs, as well as coaching evaluation and retention measures.

• Involve kids in decisions. What would they like to practice, what games or drills would they like to play? Doesn’t mean you have to let them dictate the practice schedule but you might learn what’s fun to them.

• Refrain from asking young athletes “did you win” and “how many points did you score” and instead inquire about what new skills they learned, what teammates they enjoy playing with and why, what they are working on improving in practice and how they think their sport experience helps them in other aspects of their life.

• Never blame the officiating or coaching as a reason for losing in the presence of young athletes. Administrators should see to subpar performances by those that offer their services to the program. Instead, speak to children about how they can handle adversity effectively on the court and field. We can’t expect athletes to respect officials or coaches if we as adults don’t set the example.

• And, yes, do ascertain whether kids are having fun. If they indicate that they are, inquire further as to what they find most appealing about their sport participation and discuss with them their goals as athletes. If by words or actions they signal that sport is not enjoyable for them, explore why they aren’t happy in their athletic experience. Perhaps it’s a minor issue that can be resolved and they can rediscover the joy they once felt. But sometimes it’s simply best to let them opt out of the structured sport setting and engage in that sport or other physical activities in a recreational manner.

This is far from an exhaustive list, and we welcome your suggested additions to it. Or maybe you disagree with our vantage point and would like to express a different view. We certainly don’t claim to have all the answers. But one thing we are certain of is that the solution to the present problems in youth sport is not more adult intervention and control. In fact, it could be as simple as letting kids play.

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

[hockeygod]

Don't Underestimate Scrimmages

By Jack Blatherwick

“There’s a lot of hockey learned in a scrimmage.”

These were the words of the late Dave Peterson, coach of the 1988 and 1992 U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey Teams. He was conducting a clinic from the bleachers for youth coaches in upstate New York, and rather than have his Olympic team demonstrate drills, he just had them scrimmage.

“Watch for things the players do that they wouldn’t have to do in a drill,” he told the coaches. “The anticipation, rink sense, preparation before they get to the puck — these are all learned in competition, and might not be learned in drills. Watch the way a puck carrier uses deception before passing, or the way a player without the puck, moves to get open for a pass — the way a defender sizes things up to decide how to handle a given rush. Each rush is a different situation in a scrimmage. If you’re doing 3-on-2 drills, each rush is the same, and defenders can compete without thinking.”

Jack Parker has been the head coach at Boston University for almost 40 years, and is one of the most passionate teachers in the game. At a youth coaches’ seminar this spring, he was asked what he thought was the most important characteristic to look for in a potential college recruit. Without a pause he answered, “The ability to make a hockey play.” Then, as is Coach Parker’s way, he elaborated for an hour, mostly to say that youth coaches should not overrate their ability to teach the game.

“Hockey sense is learned in competition,” Parker said. “Kids need to be given chances to think, not just told which cones to skate around. They are taught systems, but not taught how to make hockey plays. They might learn that on the soccer field. Competitive instincts might best be learned on the baseball diamond. We should not drill our young players to death.”

Peterson began coaching when there was no intimidation from elite thinkers. No one in an office building across the country was telling coaches there should be a certain number of drill-oriented practices for every competition. The truly elite thinkers were players — the ones who had creative ideas on their minds and magic in their sticks. They wanted to scrimmage in every practice, because they knew this is where they acquired that genius.

Besides that … practices were outside. Scrimmaging was the best way to keep everyone moving, and fingers from turning to icicles. But even today, if you ask great players about the most important factors in their development of rink sense, invariably they’ll point to competition of some kind. Many recall unstructured pond hockey scrimmages. Some talk about important games. Others think about scrimmages without scoreboards and referees — just hour after hour of playmaking.

I saw a quote recently by Pat Micheletti (the former goal scoring phenom at the University of Minnesota) in which he said there is no doubt players of today are bigger, faster, and stronger. “But,” he added, “I’m not sure they’re as smart or skillful” as players from past eras."

Hockey by the book can do that. It can stifle passion and reduce creativity. I asked a brilliant NHL playmaker this fall where he acquired his incredible anticipation, vision and rink sense. I wasn’t ready for the reply. “Roller hockey,” was his short answer. “Just scrimmaging with no rules.”

Now there’s something that’s not in the elite thinkers’ book. And Dave Peterson’s clinic for youth coaches: not one drill to demonstrate how to skate, shoot, handle the puck — that’s not in the book either. Maybe the drill book isn’t the place to start when we want to develop hockey players who are passionate and know how to make plays.

Come to think of it … what else matters?

—–

During the 'dog days' of summer, I will post some articles from my blog… http://www.GetSportIQ.com

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

[hockeygod]

Hockey runs through the Reinharts’ blood

DAVID EBNER, The Globe and Mail, Jun. 19 2012

There was a racket upstairs. And the baby was missing.

When Theresa Reinhart heard the shouts of “Shoot! Shoot!” she had an inkling of what was going on. Her two boys, four-year-old Max and two-year-old Griffin, had found a good use for their baby brother, Sam, hauling the infant in his small car seat upstairs to employ the kid as goaltender in the playroom.

The field of play at the Reinharts’ home in West Vancouver was expansive, varied, and constant. The boys played every sport and invented contests along the way, the more physical the better, one memorable game dubbed slamball, involving basketball and a trampoline.

“There was a lot of testosterone,” former NHL star Paul Reinhart remembered on Sunday, Father’s Day, his wife and boys gathered on their home’s patio in the late morning. “They found games to play constantly.”

But the Reinhart boys, while they loved soccer and tennis, were born with hockey in the blood, sons of Paul, the flying and scoring Calgary Flames defenceman in the 1980s who finished his career in Vancouver with the Canucks, retiring early because of a back injury. And Theresa’s family was sporty, too. She competed in badminton and volleyball, her mom was a ski racer, and her dad played U.S. college football at the University of Oklahoma.

The stew, from genes to the competitive arena of the Reinhart home, produced a Sutter – or Staal-like brood of brothers.

On Friday night in Pittsburgh at the NHL entry draft, Griffin (now 18 and 6 foot 4) could be a top-10 pick, analysts say. If that is where the young defenceman is drafted, he will top his dad, who was picked No. 12 overall by the Atlanta Flames in 1979.

“We didn’t push them into hockey,” Paul said. “They arrived in hockey just because I think they’re naturally Canadian kids.

Griffin is the second Reinhart son to skate toward the NHL. Two years ago, the eldest, Max, was picked by Calgary in the third-round and aims to make the team next season.

The baby, Sam, now 16, could be another first-rounder in two years, after lighting up the Western Hockey League last winter, notching nearly a point a game, on average.

While it’s often a long way from the draft to NHL ice, the Reinharts have already booked solid success. All three have played in the Memorial Cup, Max and Sam with the Kootenay Ice in 2011 and Griffin with the Edmonton Oil Kings this year.

There is a long history of fathers and sons – and brothers – in the NHL. Among the greats: Bobby Hull, brother Dennis and Bobby’s son Brett, Gordie Howe and sons Mark and Marty. There are the Sutters, all half-dozen of them, whose current equivalent is the quartet of Staals. Twins Henrik and Daniel Sedin of the Vancouver Canucks fit the category. Off the ice, but in the arena, Scotty Bowman’s son Stan is general manager of the Chicago Blackhawks.

When Paul went No. 12 in 1979, the draft was in August, held late as the NHL absorbed the World Hockey Association. There was no prime-time show on TSN, as there is now. Paul was trying out for the Canadian Olympic team in Calgary and was called off the ice. Cliff Fletcher, the Flames GM, was on the phone with news. Paul hardly knew where Atlanta was.

Griffin, a defenceman like his dad, has managed through a far-greater crush of attention, from detailed scouting to media, but has been helped by such peers as Oil Kings teammate Keegan Lowe, who was drafted last year and is the son of Kevin Lowe, the former Edmonton Oilers defenceman and the club’s current president of hockey operations.

The Reinharts set off as a family for Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

“I’m just excited,” Griffin said. “I’m not really going in with expectations. I’m just going to have fun with it.”

Fletcher, a special adviser to the Toronto Maple Leafs, has seen Max and Sam play live – and was immediately struck by their talent.

“I do believe in blood lines,” Fletcher said. “If it wasn’t for Paul’s back, he would have had a Hall of Fame career.”

While bloodlines have always flowed, it seems ever-more common. Max’s draft by the Flames in 2010 is one example, when Calgary also chose John Ramage, son of Rob Ramage, with the Flames not only choosing two sons but sons of two fathers who both played as Flames.

This year, including Griffin, numerous sons could be chosen in the draft, with yet another Sutter among the bunch, Lukas, son of Rich, and the fifth second-generation Sutter to be drafted.

“The last four, five drafts, it’s amazing how many young guys have been drafted, whose fathers I either played against, or played with, or knew of,” said Archie Henderson, a long-time NHL scout who played for about a decade, mostly in the minors.

At the start of each season, scouts always scan for recognizable names. NHL pedigree hardly guarantees passage to the pros but it does mean teenagers on the ice have a father who knows what it takes.

“Scouts don’t think, ‘He’ll be his father,’” Henderson said. “You scout the player. But you do inevitably think about the bloodlines.”

—–

Bloodlines usually equal opportunity / exposure to sport (or music or art, etc.) I think that since the parents were athletes, they showed and encouraged their kids to be active – thus providing role modelling and opportunity – and these kids picked up on it. I see it with my own kids. Playing many sports and being active, they developed their physical literacy and fundamental movement skills; so they could have probably specialized (and been successful) in any sport. The more I work with young kids, the better perspective it gives me. The LTAD is SO IMPORTANT!

http://www.canadiansportforlife.ca/learn-about-canadian-sport-life/ltad-stages

My advice: Get your kids to do a variety of things when they are young and malleable!

—–

Reinhart name expected to go high in draft again, young Griffin learns from Dad

The Canadian Press, 2012-06-22

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – Hockey runs deep in the Reinhart household.

Paul Reinhart played 648 games as a defenceman with the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks. And his sons are following in his footsteps.

Max was drafted in the third round—64th overall—in 2010 by the Flames. Griffin is expected to go in the first round in Friday's draft. And Sam, the WHL rookie of the year last season, is draft-eligible in 2014.

Griffin, 18, plays for the WHL champion Edmonton Oil Kings. Sam and Max are teammates on the Kootenay Ice.

At six foot four and 202 pounds, Griffin has an NHL body—Paul calls him "a menacing presence." Add composure and you have a very promising package.

In his second year with the Oil Kings, Griffin had 12 goals, 24 assists and 38 penalty minutes in 58 games.

Paul remembers coaching Griffin on his midget team and catching a glimpse of what he calls "the whoosh factor."

"You're standing on the ice and all of a sudden this big body goes by you," he said. "It's almost like a barometric change.

"I remember thinking 'Wow, that was just Griffin.' Some guys have heavy shots, some guys have just got heavy presences out there and I think Griffin's a body that has that. And when you look at the way the NHL is played these days in the NHL, big bodies are really important."

Griffin knew how to use his size early on, according to his father.

"Just because you're big doesn't necessarily mean you know how to use it," he said. "But when you're that big and you have a presence out there, to understand how important body position is and what you can do with it, I knew he was going to do very, very well."

Griffin is ranked 10th among North American skaters in the final Central Scouting rankings. Defencemen Ryan Murray (Everett), childhood friend Morgan Rielly (Moose Jaw), Cody Ceci (Ottawa), Olli Maatta (London) and Jacob Trouba (U.S. under-18) are ahead of him in this defence-heavy draft crop.

Paul was a first-round pick of the Atlanta Flames, who chose him 12th overall in the 1979 draft and moved to Calgary a year later. Just five foot 11, Reinhart was a smooth-skating offensive defenceman who moved on to further success in the world of finance after hockey.

Griffin never saw his father play—he retired at 29 due to back problems—but he has seen him in action on NHL Classics TV replays. His immediate thought was how similar their styles were.

He says he doesn't feel pressure from the family name and says his father never pushed him towards hockey. The kids just fell in love with the sport on their own.

They talk to him after every game, a tradition that Griffin says has been "huge" for his development.

His advice to Griffin before the draft was just have fun with it. But Paul has more to offer on the subject.

"I think the big thing for these guys to recognize is that what happens in the next 24 hours, 48 hours has really nothing to do with your career," said the former NHLer. "Everything that you've done to date has put you in this position. And even that doesn't matter much. It's all about what you do afterwards."

"You're now graduating to a point where development will always be important but make no mistake, when you're being paid, winning is what is important. This (the draft) is a wonderful statement as to what you've done in the past, but going forward, to be successful in this game, you have to become a winner, you have to make sure that not just you continue to develop but you somehow develop those around you.

"And I think he's got the potential to do that. … Almost every team he's played on has won."

If you're picked in the third round, go on and play as a first-rounder, says Paul.

"It's what he does after this," he said of Griffin. "It's what he does next year that matters."

Despite his glowing praise about his middle son, Paul acknowledges he thought Griffin's attitude was "indifferent" at 10 or 11 years old. Then he realized his son was just confident in his abilities.

"It couldn't be further from the truth," he said of his initial assessment. "And this year's playoffs certainly were a testament to that."

Paul had to watch his sons go head-to-head in the WHL playoffs as Edmonton played Kootenay.

"As a parent, it was very difficult to watch that," Paul said of Edmonton's 4-0 sweep.

The Oil Kings went on to beat Brandon (4-0), Moose Jaw (4-1) and Portland (4-3)—Griffin was plus-14—before losing to the eventual champion Shawinigan Cataractes in a tiebreaker at the Memorial Cup.

While Paul speaks of Griffin's poise and composure, he has also seen his son angry.

"Just get out of the way," he said. "But I'd say his angry is more get even than it is to be running around and yelling and screaming. He's not just that kind of guy."

On Thursday, Griffin had meetings set with Carolina, Minnesota, Winnipeg and Columbus.

He grew up watching Canucks as his hometown team, but "right now I'm pretty neutral."

Other players eligible for the draft with NHL connections include forward Henrik Samuelsson (son of Ulf Samuelsson), centre Alex Glachenyuk (son of Alexander Galchenyuk) and centre Stefan Matteau (son of Stephane Matteau).

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

[hockeygod]

Practice, instruction and skill acquisition in soccer: Challenging tradition

A. MARK WILLIAMS* & NICOLA J. HODGES

Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

(Accepted 24 July 2004)

Keywords: coaching, expertise, motor learning, performance

Full article: http://www.thefa.com/GetIntoFootball/FALearning/FALearningPages/~/media/Files/PDF/Get%20into%20Football/FA_Learning_YouthModule2/Practice%20instruction%20and%20skill%20acquistion.ashx/Practice%20instruction%20and%20skill%20acquistion.pdf

(Substitute your team sport where 'soccer' appears; if soccer isn't your sport!)

Abstract

The acquisition of soccer skills is fundamental to our enjoyment of the game and is essential to the attainment of expertise. Players spend most of their time in practice with the intention of improving technical skills. However, there is a lack of scientific research relating to the effective acquisition of soccer skills, especially when compared with the extensive research base on physiological aspects of performance. Current coaching practice is therefore based on tradition, intuition and emulation rather than empirical evidence. The aim of this review is to question some of the popular beliefs that guide current practice and instruction in soccer. Empirical evidence is presented to dispel many of these beliefs as myths, thereby challenging coaches to self-reflect and critically evaluate contemporary doctrine. The review should inform sports scientists and practitioners as to the important role that those interested in skill acquisition can play in enhancing performance at all levels of the game.

Summary and conclusions:

" …The traditional belief that demonstrations are essential for effective instruction was questioned. We identified the conditions under which demonstrations may be detrimental to skill acquisition and highlighted the need to direct attention to the action effects, rather than the actual bodily consequences.

Next, we highlighted the importance of variable and random practice conditions and argued that coaches may be too conservative when structuring practice, preferring the stability and security of grid and drill practices over more dynamic small-sided games. The importance of encouraging players to take responsibility for their learning by developing effective problem solving skills was highlighted . A variety of techniques were identified that may help coaches ‘‘fade out’’ the importance of augmented feedback early in learning.

The merits of the traditional, prescriptive approach to coaching were then considered and evidence was presented to illustrate how a more ‘‘hands-off’’, less prescriptive approach based on learning through guided discovery may offer several advantages in developing ‘‘smarter’’ players. Various examples of how to manipulate the constraints evident within the learning environment so that the desired behaviour emerges through guided discovery were illustrated.

Finally, we presented evidence to demonstrate that ‘‘game intelligence’’, skills such as anticipation and decision-making, are amenable to practice and instruction and suggested that such interventions should be routinely used in the talent development process…."

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

[Tom Molloy]

Good stuff Dean. I am currently on a vacation in Victoria with my wife.

Some things change and some things don't.

Example: I am writing this on an Ipad hooked up to a keyboard by Bluetooth and to the internet by WiFi. Totally wireless. Last night we watched a movie using Netflix via WiFi. I type in Butchart gardens and my Iphone gives me turn by turn directions. Booked my hotels using Hotwire etc. etc. Most of this couldn't have been done evern five years ago.

How we learn hasn't changed. If you want to be an author it isn't good enough to be able to spell, type and construct sentences knowing which is the verb, noun etc. You have to write and learn from your mistakes and then write some more. It is the same learning the piano, to sing, to teach.

Very important to have the basic skills but the game itself has continually changing situations that require responses and you can't be simulated in one way drills. Even SAG's don't are limited because the player experiences the situation he is playing and not the total game.

A coach has to organize practice so that he/she teaches the basic skills AND how to apply them in all of the various situations and transitions that happen in a game.

Big Challenge.

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

[Author]

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