Synthetic Ice Project – Play hockey in summer on your backyard

Synthetic ice, artificial ice or plastic ice on your backyard, play hockey whenever you want. Hockeycoach.se performed this project to find new ways to improve hockey skills and find new hockey training opportunities, look at the video how the synthetic ice project was from beginning to the end, in cooperation with Hockeylaget.se.

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.

Hockey,Player,Path,Templates,Practice,Values,Drills,Coaching

Read more and buy the Hockey Player Path templates here >>>

Hockey skating drills – Hockey Camp ready to go Hockey Practices

10 hockey practices for your hockey camp / school week, with aprox. 70 hockey drills, or use the hockey drills for season start up, or during the hockey season. All hockey drills / practices have a hockey drill drawing, picture, explanation and a video from the hockey practice for best understanding. Save a lot of time and create a red thread in your hockey camps for ages 8-10 and 11-13 years.

Hockey,Camp,Drills,Practices,Training,Week,SummerHockey,Camp,Practices,Drills

Read more about the Hockey Camp eBook here >>>

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)
Youth, Hockey, Practices, Drills, 7, 8, 9, years, Players, Training, Coaching

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.

Read more about the first season youth hockey practices and drills here >>

Youth Hockey Coaching Philosophy / Vision – HockeyCoach.se

”Individually skilled skaters and creative players, with team spirit”

Use the time during on ice hockey practices with quality. Create opportunity for development and creativity during your hockey practices. Good skaters have time to be creative and find solutions during the hockey game and ”creative mistakes” can be repaired by good skating…

Taylor, Hall, 8 year, old, young, hockey, player, Ville, Aro, -04
Taylor Hall, Edmonton (NHL), and a 8 year young hockey player.

Read more about the first season hockey practices and drills for 7-9 year old / young hockey players here >> 

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.

Hockey, Goal, Scoring, Drill, Practice, Training, Shooting

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.

Read more about the Hockey goal scoring practices and drills here >>

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
Hockey, Goal, Scoring, Practices, Drills, Practicing, Training

Read more about goal scoring hockey practice eBook here >>

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.
Hockey, goal, scoring, shooting, drills, practices, training

Read more about the eBook for goal scoring in hockey, practices and drills here >>

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.
Hockey, Goal, Scoring, Theory, Practices, Drills, eBook

Read more and buy the eBook here >>

Hockey Practices – Ready to go

Hockey practices and drills for the first hockey season (7-9 years old). Over 60 on ice hockey practices to use and 102 pages describing the first hockey season, for youth hockey players. Read more about the hockey practices and drills for the first season here >>
Hockey,Practices,Drills,First,Season

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….

Best Team Spirit – Team and Individual Values – Norway

To get the best team spirit and values within the team the Norwegian National Hockey Team defined some team value words and the meaning of them in practice.

Norway scoring goal against Germany Hockey World Championships

“Can we control results or the outcome from a game? No, but we can control our physical preparation, our action and our values!”

Team Values – To beat the best teams!

– Disciplin (extremely good carrying through, we cannot afford careless performance)
– Engagement (We make each other good, and the opposite team bad)
– Enthusiasm (Positive body language)
– Clear roles and ownership of the role
– Desperation (work / practice hard and with discipline twice / day)

How do you show this when you step in to the changing room? How is your body language? What do you stand for? (More about body language is found here >>)

Desperation Succesful Team Values Norway

Inspire your self and your teammates to success!

Norway made one of their best World Championship Tournament results in 2012, they were “unlucky” to meet the coming world champions Russia early in the Play Off’s, a thing they could not control (who they will meet), but they were well prepared, 2-2 in the third period…
Russia 5 – 2 Norway (Quarter finals)
Russia 6 – 2 Finland (Semi-finals)
Russia 6- 2 Slovakia (Final)

Hockey Ironman – Norway

As one of the steps to develop Norwegian hockey, and the physical status of the players, the “Ironman” competition was started.

All the hockey players and teams are part of the Ironman competition, the players/team get points on their result in physical events, like 40 m sprint, 3000 m running, and different strength and jumping excercises. If you or your team is not physically prepared for the upcoming hockey season, it will be revealed here.

The Ironman event has put the physical off-season practice in focus, as planned from the beginning, this is also a big thing for media.

The score in the different physical excercises, are categorized on four levels 1. Machine (Elite level) 2. Towards the Elite level 3. Should be improved 4. Hobby level

Ironman Score Table Norway Hockey

2012 Ironman winner was Jonas Holos, to mention something, he had the time 10,30 on 3000 m running, not bad for a 95 kg / 209 lbs defenseman…

Norwegian Hockey To The Top

The most impressive presentation during the hockey coach training, was the Norwegian one. So good content and fantastic presentation by Roy Johansen (National hockey team coach) and his colleague from Olympic coaching team (Olympiatoppen).

Roy Johansen Norway Hockey Roy Johansen to the left, Dan Hobér to the right.

Norway started their development by thinking of, what are the best teams / nations doing? What does the best hockey player do, what skills do they have, and what skills are they masters of?

Then they continued with working with their own team identity, who are we? What can we be best in? What can we control? Can we chase the other team all over the rink?

As an output from this, Team Norway could get some answers and identify areas to focus on. The key area was the answer to the questions, What can we be best in? What can we control?

We can be physically prepared. Therefore they – Created a physical training development stair, with defined levels of, what is world class. – Started an “Ironman” competition for all players and teams, that is run before the season starts. – Defined their way of playing hockey – Defined team values, or valuing words to describe wanted behavior within the hockey team. – Set goals short and long term

Team Norway Hockey, Victory over Latvia during World Championships 2012

“Extreme goals – Requires extreme process” /Team Norway

To be continued…

Ice Hockey in Denmark

I will continue with the learnings from the hockey coaching training, I attended during the World Championships in hockey. Next up Denmark…

Per Bäckman the head coach of Denmarks national hockey team and Esben Nedermark GM Danish National Hockey Team started their presentation, with talking about how small sport hockey is in Denmark.

Denmark hockey team and coaches, From right to left, behind the bench, Per Bäckman, Tomas Jonsson and Esben Nedermark.

Danish hockey has:
– 4400 registered players
– 16 teams
– 24 indoor rinks

While there are:
– 5000 hockey officials/referees in Toronto
– 296818 licensed football players in Denmark
– 5800 badminton players in Denmark
and 6000 Floorball players

Still Denmark is in the highest division in hockey, I will altough also talk about Norway, they have done an impressive work, with small or similar resources (6700 registred players!

What have Denmark done then?

One of the focus areas have been to have short and quick attacks, if you have not scored after 15 seconds you can give the puck to the other team, like the Norwegian national football team manager “Drillo” Olsen once said.

The Danish team have also been working with tactic and the discipline to stick to it, teambuilding, social environment and technical skills (opposite to Norway). What they are not good in regarding the national team coaches, is the physical part, they are too weak. The hard practicing culture is not there…

About the future…

Regarding the future for Danish hockey, Per Bäckman was quite negative, “we are at the top now, we will not get better, and we will not get more players or rinks, we need to take care of what we have now and try to maintain that.”

Wrong attitude…

In my mind totally wrong attitude, you will always need development and try to recruit new players and develop the game, players and teams (like Norway, coming in later post). When you think you can not develop or are satisfied, you will start your stagnation and to roll down the hill you are climbing and be eliminated in the end!

Denmark hockey and floorball Danish Hockey a good story (name of the presentation) – They have done a good work, but it will not last for so long, with the attitude I have described above…

“You have totally different view on game system and tactics than Sweden?” “Yes, I can not understand, why you would chase another players on the ice for 60 minutes” /Per Bäckman