| Teaching the Mental Side of Hockey |
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This article is directed to coaches and parents and looks at how to teach the mental side of hockey and how strategy matters. It hopefully will be of interest and maybe even some of the suggestions might be helpful.
Much of what is written was tried out at the Bill Bolton Summer Hockey School and we have included the exercises we found to be most successful. Our definition of success is that it seems to teach the skill and it is fun.
The mental game means playing smart. It can be divided into five sections:
1. Why teach the mental side of hockey.
2. Positional hockey.
3. Passing and moving the puck.
4. Getting into the open.
5. Playing strategically
You can click on the item and go to that section directly.
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| 1. Why Teach the Mental Side of Hockey. |
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One of the things we as hockey coaches hear a lot from parents is how important the mental aspect of hockey is. This is usually followed by a lament on how their child hasn't picked it up, or (more frequently) the team has not picked it up. We all agree that positioning, strategy and playing smart make a big difference. However, while it is one thing to believe this, it is a totally different thing to instil it in kids whose ages range from 8 to 16. Just because you tell your team to pass more does not mean that they will.
This article is about teaching the mental side of hockey.
Why teach it at all?
Shouldn't the kids at house league level just go out there and have fun? Well, the truth is that when you improve at something, it becomes more fun. It is more fun to cook the better one is at it, since eating a tasty meal is more fun then a burnt one or one which is over-salted. Similarly, the ability to read well makes reading more fun. Being able to make shots while playing tennis is more fun then hitting the ball into the net or out of bounds all the time.
The same is true of hockey. As the skill level and the mental game improves, the kids have more fun (even when they lose!).
The second reason is that the mental aspect of Hockey can be the great athletic equalizer. Without it the winning team is usually the one with the best skater (or skaters), and the kid who can skate through the opposing team wins. He also hogs the puck. Even with a three goal limit on the budding superstar, a three goal deficit is difficult to dig out of.
Let me illustrate why teaching the mental side of hockey is the great equalizer. One of the weakest skaters in the league recently grasped the concept of passing as soon as he has the puck. The change in his performance was immediately noticed not only by his coach, but also by his teammates. In a recent game, he got the puck at the side of the net. He immediately flicked it over the stick of a defender (much to the delighted surprise of his coach, who did not know he could raise the puck) onto one of his teammate's stick who was in front of the net. That player banged the puck into the net. On the bench and after the game the player got many remarks about that pass.
Another example is another boy, also a weak skater, who liked to play defense. "Move the puck quickly" was stressed over and over, to either pass it or to shoot it out of one's own end. "Goals are not scored if the puck is not in your end, so just get it out" was the emphasis. The boy took this sentiment to heart and every time he got the puck he moved it. Since then he has learned to poke check. He still is not the best skater on the team, but the amount of plays he breaks up and the amount of good, smart passes he manages makes him now the most reliable defenseman on the team. This is one kid who understands how important the mental side of the game is.
What specific things can coaches do to teach the mental side of hockey?
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| 2. Positional Hockey |
Most players (even as young as 8), play positional hockey. The defense generally play defense and the forwards play forwards. By 9 and 10, the whole team does not chase the puck. Only one or two players will go into the corners and the rest will position themselves accordingly. When the puck is in the offensive zone, the defense will stand at the blue line. When the puck is in the defensive zone, usually one player will protect the front of the net.
Every year we are just amazed, how players understand this intuitively. Problems like both defenseman leaving the front of the goal unprotected are solved easily by telling your players "Do not do that. We always need a player in front of the net, and we shouldn't get outnumbered in front of the net." Even the youngest kids respond to this.
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| Pinching and Poke Checking |
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Poke checking involves using your stick to knock the puck away from another player. It involves two skills: accuracy in hitting the puck and, much more importantly, timing. Too early and the player will go around you, too late and you've missed them.
This exercise needs two players.
Two lines of players about 30 feet away from each other. This exercise can be done across the width of the ice. The player with the puck (offense) tries to get past the defensive player. The defensive player tries to poke check the puck away. Because you are doing this across the ice, you can have groups of four (2 offense and 2 defence) in each quadrant. This way there is very little wait time before you get another try. It's a good idea to match skills in the little group.
A variation of this is 2 on 1, where the defenseman tries to poke check while the offense tries to pass.
Another variation of this is to make the goal to put the puck into a net or some kind of trap. So if the defenseman misses the puck and the player(s) gets by him, the defendor has to turn and chase and try to poke check again.
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| 3. Passing and Moving the Puck |
The single worst problem with house league players is their inability to pass the puck fast enough. They just don't want to pass the puck, and would rather to skate with it. In reality they skate for about 5 feet before someone takes the puck away from them.
The problem is often not a lack of technical skill but that they don't process the need to quickly pass.
How do we know? Well we have seen players change. A kid, who usually plays goal, sometimes plays forward. The last two games he got 5 assists in one game and 2 assists and a goal in the last game. He is about average in skill, but what he did is he moved the puck immediately. When he got the puck it was immediately off his stick either as a pass or a shot. He just set people up. After years of being nagged he got it.
One further point of interest is that many of these players who refuse to pass do not have this problem when they play soccer.
So how do we teach this?
The first is a basic skill of being able to pass the puck accurately. If you can't move the puck 10 feet, you won't be able to pass the puck.
Teaching this skill is essential. The trick is to make this fun. You could just pair up kids and have them pass it back and forth, but this gets boring and kids very quickly lose motivation. We believe that this maybe due to the fact that the kids do not see a problem with their passing skills, do not see that this is something they MUST improve, so they wonder why they should put their effort into it. If you can make passing and practicing fun, and have the kids go after another goal, they may be more willing to practice passing.
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| Hit the Target |
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So here is a game where accuracy counts and you can actually build in competition between the weak and strong players.
Line the players along the boards.
Five feet away have a trap. One can use board with a hole in it and a towel on the other side or as the picture shows to boards together..
The player gets 10 pucks and he has to hit them into the shape, which has a hole facing the player (or in our case, through the hole).
That's round one.
Any player who got 5 or more pucks through must move the trap five feet further away.
Players who got less then 5 through don't move the trap. The shots are repeated.
That's round two.
Any players who have gotten more than 5 pucks through must move their trap a further five feet.
Keep going. Some players will have the traps on the other side of the ice, others will have the trap 5, 10 or 15 feet away. The last round is a competition to see who can get the most pucks in. This will allow even the youngest players (who have the trap 5 feet away) to compete against the oldest (who have moved the trap 25 feet away).
Do this every day for a week and the players will hit the puck harder and with greater accuracy.
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One Timers
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For this exercise, players work in pairs. Player A gets ten pucks in a row, while Player B stands at the side of the net, about ten feet away. Player A passes the puck to Player B who one times it into the net. This is followed by the next puck. It is important to line the pucks up, so Player A does not have to hunt for or fiddle with the pucks.
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The Box
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This exercise worked well at hockey camp
Begin with a box in front of a goalie using two defence and two forwards. First the players have to pass it among themselves. When the instructor yells "shoot" the person who receives the pass, must shoot it. As the players get better at passing, then the the players are instructed to direct the pass to the next player. We will call this a one-timer pass, no controlling the puck first. When the instruction to shoot is issued it is also to be a one-timer.
Once the players have mastered this, the passing is opened up. Players can decide when to shoot. The rule is at least two passes before you shoot and go in for rebounds.
For the younger kids (9 and 10) whose passing skills are less developed, it takes longer to master this technique. They will miss the puck or misdirect it across the ice. It is important that the instructors keep a stack of pucks so that the moment a kid loses the puck another puck is put into play. Kids should NOT run and fetch pucks.
The older kids after about 10 minutes generally get it. After about 15 minutes they are able to move the puck fairly quickly. Not only do they start scoring but they score frequently, sometimes making really pretty goals.
A variation on this is to increase and decrease the size of the box. Also, when the puck is behind the net the student should be instructed to go behind the net and one-time pass it to someone in front of the net. The players in front of the net should be instructed to move to such a position where the player behind the net CAN pass the puck onto their stick.
The weak link becomes the goalie who ends up letting in a lot of goals. The instructor can work with the goalie to see if he can work out strategies to cut down the scoring onslaught. Poke Checking is a good idea.
What we have found is there is a huge after-affect. The students would do this exercise for half-an-hour and then play a scrimmage. Observing these scrimmages we have seen some of the best passing and scoring plays we have ever seen for this age group.
As one instructor said, "This exercise is a keeper."
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| 5 on 3 |
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The most successful exercise we have done is the 5-on-3 one: one goalie and two defensemen vs. three forwards and two defensemen. The offense tries to score, the defense tries to clear the puck or the goalie freezes the puck. Believe it or not this exercise is stacked against the offense. The defense almost always wins. It takes about 20 minutes before the offensive players figure out that they have to really move the puck quickly amongst each other to have any chance, another 10 before they start actually doing it.
This exercise we have found consistently succeeds in teaching quick passing. If done for over half an hour the lesson sticks.
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Pass to Break Away. (Horseshoe Warm-up with 2 shots)
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4 players at the blue line. (Player A)
One player across the blue line with a bunch of pucks. (Player B)
Player A skate down the side and then turns towards the goalie.
Player B must at that moment put the puck on Player A's stick.
Player A takes a shot and then goes around a pylon in the corner. As he passes the pylon player B passes another puck to him, and he goes in for a second shot.
Player B does all four skaters in the line, and then joins the player A line. One of the Player As becomes player B.
Do this from the left side and then the right side of the net.
This exercise is much better if there is a goalie. Because he gets two chances to score on the goalie. If there is no goalie, have a target in the net the players try to hit.
It is important that the coaches make sure that Player B has enough pucks and spends no time chasing wayward pucks.
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3 or 4 on 1 goalie
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Have 3 or 4 players in front of the goalie. Throw the puck in the middle, and have them try to score.
If the puck goes in the corner, or behind the net or the goalie freezes it, line them up and throw another puck in.
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| 4. Getting into the Open |
To make a pass, the person must be in position to get the pass. Most house league players do not stand in position where it is advantageous to get a pass, or are not moving. How do we get players to move to a postion where they should get a pass?
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Touch Football
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The game of touch football consists of players going out for a pass and the quarterback throwing it to them when they are clear of the defender. It also is part of the game that when you are free you yell at the quarterback that you have broken loose. These are exactly the skills these hockey players need. If the coaches play quarterback and have a rule that they will not pass it to you unless you yell, we can teach the players to signal when they are open.
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Monkey in the Middle
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Every kid knows the idea of monkey in the middle. One person in the middle and the rest throw the ball to each other in such a way that the person in the middle cannot catch it. If the player in the middle does catch it, then the player who throws it goes into the middle.
The idea is the same except the players use a hockey puck. They also move around to get out into the open to take that pass.
On paper this looks like a great exercise, because not only is quick passing a required skill, but moving into position is also taught.
In reality it can fail. Players who cannot pass it will fail too often, so they get bored. Really good passers are too good, so the player in the middle usually cannot get the puck.
But for many players this is a fun game.
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| 5. Playing Strategically |
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Playing strategically makes a very big difference. In some games it is only about strategy. Chess is probably the best example of this; but lately some video games really are just massive strategy sessions.
Hockey is no different. Strategy matters.
Now in house league there is a fine balance that must be drawn between structuring the kids and just letting them play.
In our experience we have found that younger kids (9-10 year olds) will buy into strategic playing quicker then 13-15 year olds, who often seem intent on doing their own thing.
The other thing we found that teams which get consistently beaten badly are also more open to trying out a strategy. A couple examples of this:
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One year a team which was thoroughly locked in last place, after a particularly lopsided loss, finally decided to try a passing strategy, with the players moving to designated spots in the offensive zone; that way players knew where to pass. Suffice to say this team which definitely was the worst skating team managed to dig themselves out of a hole and ended up in third place at the end.
Another team which had lost every game usually by huge margins was taught a dump the puck out and dump the puck in front of the opposing net strategy. They did not win any games but they were close and a totally discouraged team got a new excitement for the game. Their enjoyment of the games dramatically increased because in each game they were in it, because of the strategy they employed.
It is our experience that teams which buy into a good strategy not only play better but seem to have more fun.
So how do we teach them? Here are some suggestions we think may help.
1. Keep the instruction simple.
Explaining a complex strategy, no matter how wonderful probably will not work at the house league level. Furthermore it may be too complex for the younger kids. Here is an example of this.
Encouraging passing and teaching them to play a box formation may be a great strategy, but quite often does not have the desired effect. With one team the instruction was issued, "I want you to move the puck immediately. Don't skate with the puck especially in your own end."
Now it was interesting to see the effect of this instruction. The first thing and very surprising was that the team as a whole bought it into it. They cleared the puck almost instantly out of their own end, and in the offensive end would shoot or throw the puck in front of the net. The result was the forwards moved up the ice the moment a player was ready to clear the puck, creating more breakaways, and in the offensive zone players went to the net, knowing full well that the puck would end up there.
Did the players stop skating with the pick? Absolutely not, but they did it much more intelligently and usually when that was the best choice.
2. Pick a couple of plays and then stick with them.
What we mean by this is that no house league team will have a playbook. But they will follow one or two concrete plays.
Examples of this are:
* We must have the same or more players in front of our net, then the opposing team at all times.
* Don't pass the puck in front of your own net.
* If you have no one to pass too, and cannot skate, dump it into the corner.
* Shoot low on the goalie and go in for a rebound.
* We need a player positioned at the edge of the faceoff circle ready for at one-timer.
3. Get the kids to give each other feedback.
With the exception of laces which stay tight once you tighten them, this is probably one of the biggest changes that I have seen in hockey players since I was a kid. When we were young, kids yelled for a pass or banged their sticks on the ice if they were open, and when they came off they would complain "Why didn't you pass it to me, I was open."
For some reason you don't hear that any more. A little feedback like that would probably go a long way to have the team play more like a team.
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| Finally |
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We wrote this article to put some ideas on the table. We are interested in feedback and any further exercises or suggestions you may have. We divided this article into sections so if anyone has some good practical ideas it is easy to add them and we will be quite happy to do this.
So hopefully it was interesting and we can get a discussion going.
In choosing the exercises we did it was important to us to have ones that are effective but even more important are fun to do.
Because that is what it is really all about in the final analysis. We want the kids to have fun.
Thank you for reading this far.
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| Thank you to the Contributors |
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We would like to give a special thanks to all the contributors to this article.
Especially to James Oreto.
James has been involved with Bill Bolton his whole life. He is currently Director of the successful Summer Hockey School at Bill Bolton. He works at the arena and also volunteers his time coaching in the Bill Bolton House League Program. James has been a hockey instructor for over 10 years.
James not only contributed to this article but even more important tried and refined and improved many of the exercises. It was his work with the exercises at Bill Bolton Summer Hockey School which has made this article possible.
James is at Bill Bolton most weekends.
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