Hockey Player Path

Hockey Player Path templates, will help you to create common path for practices, drills, coaching and values in your hockey team or club. Define what’s most important in various categories and in different ages, along the hockey player path.

A visualized hockey player path document will create clarity for hockey players, parents and sponsors, it will be clear for everyone one what you strive and stand for.

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Youth Hockey Practices and Drills 7, 8 & 9 years old

Youth hockey practices and drills. Hockey practice 2 of 72 during the first hockey season for young hockey players, 7-9 years old.

Youth hockey practice part 1. Hockey skating technique and skills (basic, one foot kicks, stops) and circles (not in the hockey drill / practice drawing)
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Youth hockey practice part 2 A. Skating with puck, shot, pick up rebound/new puck, slalom back. B. Skating round the cones. C. Skating round the circles and quick slalom on blue line. D. Stops facing the cone. E. Skate with puck, turns around cones, shot, pick up puck/rebound and turns with puck on the way puck.

Youth hockey practice part 3. A. Passes between cones, shot and rebound. B. Forward and backward skating. C. See above, with puck. D. Skating round the cones. E. Puck on one side body on other, backwards with puck back.

Youth hockey practice part 4. Game in all three zones.

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Hockey Goal Scoring (Shooting) Practice / Drill

Hockey Goal Scoring Practice / Drill, to the left: Player 1 skate in from blue, fake a shot during sideway movement, get the goalie to react / freeze. Move sideways and shoot/score, if not, take rebound. 2. Same repeated from the corner.

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Hockey Goal Scoring Practice / Drill, to the right: Start with a slap shot from blue line, skate in, receive a pass, wrist / snap shot and rebound. You can also leave the player that just took the shot, in front of the goal, to stay in the front of the goalie and to steer / deflect the shot from the next player from blue line.

One of the keys in goal scoring in hockey is movement and to “freeze” the hockey goalie.

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Hockey Goal Scoring Practices and Drills – Intro

Goal scoring in hockey is a complex skill and knowledge, and there will be no short cuts or direct guidance, ”do this and you score goals in hockey”. It’s more about understanding the different goal scoring skills and knowledge about different factors in goal scoring, since hockey is an open skilled sport (free movement, and moving opponents) and therefore also several factors to be considered. Practicing (repetition) is the key to success and to score goals in hockey. Be focused and try to score a goal every time you practice and you do a hockey practice!
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” /Wayne Gretzky
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Hockey Goal Scoring (Shooting) Drills and Practices

Hockey drills and practices for goal scoring (shooting) are wanted, because in the end this is what ice hockey is about, scoring more goals than the opposite team. In the eBook Hockey goal scoring drills and practices, you will find both theory and hockey goal scoring practices and drills that can be used on your ice hockey practices.
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Hockey Goal Scoring Practices eBook

Hockey is a fair game, the team scoring most goals will win. This eBook will give you theory and practice in hockey goal scoring skills and knowledge.
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Hockey – Goal Scoring

The last theme on the International hockey coaching training / education, was goal scoring and goalie techniques. I have chosen to only take the goal scoring part in hockey, to finish up with a similar post I started up.

I wrote earlier about what is important when you practice to score goals in hockey.
– Shoot quickly
– Shoot with precision
– Shoot hard/fast
– “Hide” the shot
– Shoot unannounced

Here are some other aspects, like the distnace from where you are shooting from. This is a picture how the goal and goalie looks like from a longer distnace (if you shoot early).

Goal Scoring Hockey Shooting Early

By moving just 1,5 meter closer the goal and goalie, the free space in the goal is radically reduced, and therefore also the goal scoring opportunities.

Goal Scoring Hockey Shooting Close to Goalie and Goal

Shoot earlier if you want the best odds to score a goal in hockey.

Move in the sight when you shoot in hockey

During this lesson, it was also recommended from a hockey goalie point of view to move in the sight a little bit, you don’t need to hit the post and in, to score a goal in hockey. Shots close to the hockey goalie body are many times hard to catch and you also minimize the risk of missing the goal totally, and then you will definitely not score goals in hockey.

Freeze the hockey goalie

The skill level of the hockey goalies has also dramatically improved, and a technique to improve the goal scoring chances is to “freeze” the goalie before the actual shot or pass to teammate. Freezing means the hockey goalie is totally prepared for shot in first moment, but instead the shot or pass comes in the next moment.
This can be done with a small shot feint, pass feint or other move that makes the goalie believe “OK, now the shot comes”. When the goalie makes a small reaction in the first step, it will reduce the time for the actual save in the next step, either it’s a shot or pass to a teammate who will shoot. GOOOOAAAAAL….

Hockey Game Tactics Sweden

In the International Hockey Coaching Education, during the World Championships in Sweden, we had the opportunity to listen to the Swedish National Hockey team coach, before each game.

“We want to play with full puck control / possession towards the offensive zone, and in the  offensive zone we try to go straight towards the goal, P1 goes in front of the goal and P2 seeks up the rebound area. We also try to stay in the way of the goalie and steer the shots. Other areas we focus on, are to “win the inside” in 1-1 situations. You can say that, the more skilled hockey players you have the less we talk about how, it’s more about what.”

Roger Rönnberg Swedish National Team Ice Hockey Sweden

/Roger Rönnberg, Swedish National Team Coach in ice hockey

Hockey Goalie Trainer or Goal Scoring Coach, Part 3

…Hockey Goalie Trainer or Goal Scoring Coach, Part 3 Looking at goal scoring, shooting skills and hockey practicing focus, you could say that much of the focus is today on, taking rebounds in front of the goal and creating a mask, traffic or wall in front of the hockey goalie to reduce the visibility, when the shot comes.

This will be important in future, but increased training focus will need to be on shooting skills and in scoring goals, with different types of shooting techniques like:
– Wrist shot
– Snap shot
– Slap shot
– Backhand
– Shooting unannounced and in movement sideways
– To be able to shoot with the weight (centre of gravity) on both feets, left or right (the foot that is in front).

“In NHL the shots will not come through if you don’t shoot fast and quick” /Dave Smith, NHL officials health and wellness coach

If you want to see some examples from hockey you can watch Alexander Ovechkin and Phil Kessel. Ovechkin example, start at 00:44, goal scoring skills in practice.

Topic to be continued…

Hockey Goalie Trainer or Goal Scoring Coach, Part 2

…Hockey Goalie Trainer or Goal Scoring Coach, Part 2. If you look at the Nordic countries in ice hockey most of the teams and hockey players are very skilled when it comes to stick handling and skating, but there is lack of good goal scorers and skilled shooters, why? (of course with some exceptions)

This is simply a result of practicing focus, in USA and Canada a lot effort is put in this area in hockey practices, shooting and goal scoring, while in Sweden and Finland other areas are prioritized.

In the end it doesn’t matter how skilled you are with the puck, what counts is the amount of goals scored in a hockey game.

Of course the first step is to:
1. Create goal scoring opportunities (You need to be a good skater and a stick handler to create these goal scoring opportunities in a hockey game)
2. Score goal
3. Defend your own goal

 

I think a lot of focus in hockey is already put in area 3. Defend your own goal, and then 1. Create goal scoring opportunities, but what can be improved is, 2. Score goal when you have the chance.

“I will get ready, and perhaps my chance will come” / John Wooden

To be continued…

Hockey Goalie Trainer or Goal Scoring Coach

You can have a Head Coach in hockey, assistant coach, defense coach, goalie trainer and other coaching or support functions around the hockey team, but who is the hockey goal scoring coach or trainer?

Dennis Endras Goalie Germany / HIFK Hockey World Championships

This subject was discussed during the International Hockey Coaching Symposium I attended during the World Championships in ice hockey in Sweden / Finland, together with all the Swedish Elite hockey coaches.

Torgny Bendelin, a famous Swedish hockey coach talked about this topic. Hockey on elite level is changing, the game is faster, harder, quicker and the time players have to make their decissions is reduced to a minimum.

In hockey a lot of time has been put in to develop the defensive systems the teams are using both on National and International level and of course a lot of efforts to improve the skills of the goalies, with help from special goalie trainers. The goalies are good in positioning and working with different angles towards the shooter.

Therefore the hockey players need to:
– Shoot quickly or quicker than before
– Shoot with precision
– Shoot hard/fast
– “Hide” the shot
– Shoot unannounced

These are the areas you also need to practice if you want to be a good future goal scorer in hockey.

This topic will continue in later posts…