Yes! Some folks around here blindly track passes during games and hold kids accountable for some arbitrary number to hit. More to passing than just throwing the puck in a direction.
The contrast in what different sized space affords is plainly evident here—larger space naturally leads to more spaced out players with more time to react, smaller space leads to closer players with less time—with essentially the same task.
I’m envious of all the space your team gets to put in scoreboards like this. We share the ice with 2 other teams (12U, about 45-50 skaters). Not a lot of space. Any ideas for a small scoreboard?
Cody retweeted
I’ve been getting pushback at coaching clinics when I say, “you can’t separate the skill from the decision”.
Coaches clinging to linear progression:
“drills” (for skills) -> live (once requisite skills are acquired).
The skill is the decision which impacts how we teach.
We share the ice with 3 teams so we have 6 colors on the ice, 2 for each team loosely grouped by skill.
I’ve had a lot of success with this. Parents and other coaches do think it strange, though, no matter the evidence presented.
Huh, yeah, these kids are 11 and 12, too. Having multiple kids be “it” seems to work well to keep kids moving.
Kids always ask for scrimmages, but with 3 teams sharing the ice, it is very difficult to justify full-ice. So we tried cutting the ice down the middle for 2 length-wise scrimmages. The narrow space forces kids to move the puck up the ice and they are forced to make a decision.
1. Circle skating warmup
2. Stations:
a. Forward/Backward Tag
b. 3v2 Power Play
c. Offsides Game
3. Length-wise scrimmage
Decided to reuse most of the last session for today's evaluations.
dropbox.com/scl/fi/u2m58t2av…
We do these evaluations to try to balance the teams at each rink as best we can. It is an impossible task since kids grow so much during a season. One more evaluation session left and then the teams will be set.
The kids really enjoyed the Forward/Backward tag based on the amount of smiles and general fun ruckus that I saw. The offsides game helped some of the newer kids understand that rule more and the cross-ice games went as well as those could go. There was a wide range of skill.
The kids did not move around the ice in the warmup activity. Most of them had a hard time with the passing in general so it just became a stationary keep-away.
At our rink 3 teams (~50 kids) will be sharing each ice time so it makes some things more difficult. I thought the plan went smoothly.