“A loose puck doesn’t know who is bigger, stronger, or drafted higher. A loose puck only knows who gets to it first!”

Brilliant… And so true.

When we talk about goaltending, speed also kills. Maybe even more so. The great goalies seem to move faster than the puck. As they say, these goalies have cat-like reflexes or a “super-human” reaction time.

Now here’s where I have to take a stand. The typical use of reaction time is not correct. In the media (every time I hear a colour analyst say reaction time, I cringe), when the phrase is used, what is being referred to is the goalie’s ability to read where the puck is going and move part of his body (glove, blocker, pad, etc.) to intercept it before it passes them. In sport science, this is referred to as response time, not reaction time.

Reaction time is part of response time but it’s not alone. The other component of response time is movement time. So to really turn everyone off, here’s the math part of this post (it’s really not that bad, just kind of geeky):

Response Time = Reaction Time (RT) + Movement Time (MT)

Simple, yet powerful, as I’ll try to explain in a moment. To distill this down to what we see on the ice, the ability of the goalie to intercept a puck fired at the net, the goalie needs to have a quick response time and this requires the goalie to recognize that the puck is on it’s way (RT) and then move to stop it (MT).

Now, I know how these things work. You’re probably all thinking “Who the hell cares, reaction time, response time! We all know what they mean.” Just about everyone I talk to about this just rolls their eyes and quietly hopes that I’ll drop it if they nod their head in agreement and don’t say anything. But here’s the thing, and this is the powerful part, it has a huge impact on how we can train goalies.

When we think only in terms of “Reaction Time”, as used by the general hockey public (i.e., not sport scientists), how do we design drills to improve this component of goaltending?

When we recognize that there are multiple pieces to Response Time, we can now direct training to each aspect of response time (RT & MT), as well as identify where we can make the most improvement.

For example, if we measure a goalie’s reaction time and movement time (and now can calculate their response time), we may see that their response time is about the same as the “average” goalie they compete against.

But when we look at their RT and MT components separately, we see a different picture – an opportunity. Their RT is substantially faster than their competition, however, their MT is slower. We can now develop a training plan specifically designed to improve their MT and thus improve their overall Response Time. Instead of seeing an “average goalie” we now know where we can focus so that the goalie becomes anything but average. We can now create a goalie with cat-like reflexes. That goalie will have a “super-human” response time.

Perhaps someone reading this knows someone in the media and can forward this post on to those colour analysts and they can start saying “Wow, that goalie’s got incredible response time!”, and I can stop cringing.

For many families, minor hockey is a 12-month a year endeavour. Despite the fact that the science tells us playing a single sport year round is detrimental to our child’s development, we feel that just to have a chance to play at a competitive level, we can’t let our kid take a couple of months off after the season comes to an end in the spring.

Knowing that kids will be playing hockey year round, how can we best avoid the pitfalls of this type of training schedule (e.g., injuries, dropping out)?

Coach & Parent Awareness

As a parent or coach, you are the child’s advocate. You need to be keeping a keen eye out for any sign of staleness in your young athlete. Staleness is when an athlete has difficulty maintaining their regular training regimen and fails to perform up to previous levels of achievement. Sometimes this can just show up as a bit of a slump and the athlete finds their way out of it after a bit of time. However, this staleness, if left unchecked, can develop into much larger problems.

Staleness is a precursor to burnout. Unfortunately if you don’t notice that your young athlete is getting stale, you can easily find them emotionally, psychologically, and physically, 100% totally drained. For many minor hockey players this leads them to quit playing hockey; permanently. The good news is that if detected early enough, you can take steps to help your athlete avoid experiencing prolonged staleness and burnout.

What follows is a list of warning signs and symptoms that are characteristic of staleness and burnout in athletes. Take a careful read. This list is important to know.

There’s quite a number of scary things in that list. Hopefully, you aren’t able to say “That’s my kid!” to too many of them. If you do notice that several of these staleness signs and symptoms apply to your young player and they’ve experienced them consistently over an extended period of time (e.g., 3-4 weeks), it should definitely be brought to the attention of the coach/parents and possibly your primary health care provider.

Staleness Risk Factors (RF)

Now, an ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure so even if you don’t think your athlete is at risk of staleness, you should still be aware of some of the underlying risk factors. Once you get this down, you’ll be able to start planning and problem solving so you can help your young hockey player avoid heading down the path to burnout.

RF1 – Long Training & Competitive Seasons

Longer seasons (This is us!) increase the risk of experiencing staleness.

RF2 – Monotony of Training

Variety is the spice of life and it also keeps you fresh, motivated, and excited to put in the work necessary at practice. Mix up how and what you train. Sometimes something as simple as changing when during the day you train can help break things up.

RF3 – Lack of Positive Reinforcement

Coaches and parents are great at pointing out what’s wrong. The kids are pretty good at that too. Focus on rewarding the good things we see and stop punishing the bad things. Too much negativity from coaches and parents won’t make your player any better. It’ll just make them afraid to make a mistake!

RF4 – Abusiveness from Authority Figures

This seems like common sense but it’s surprising how many athletes (and by extension, their parents) will put up with abusive behaviour from a coach because they feel they have to “learn from the best” if they want to keep up. The sad thing is that in the end, this type of experience does more to demoralize and demotivate than to inspire.

RF5 – High Levels of Competitive Stress

Here in Southern Ontario, we really have a strong focus on playing competitive games. It’s not unusual for a team of 9 year olds to play more than 60 games in a season. Considering that lots of these games come in the form of elimination games (Lose and you’re done – tournaments, play-offs), it’s not hard to see that we put tons of competitive stress on our young athletes. Be aware that as adults we have developed coping skills to deal with this pressure. Most kids don’t have these skills. Over time, without proper rest, the stress will wear them down. Sometimes to reach a higher level of performance, your hockey player will need to take a break.

RF6 – Perceived Low Accomplishment

As adults, we like to say minor hockey “isn’t about the wins and losses”, but success is such an important factor for anyone learning something new. This is especially true for kids. Playing hockey requires an amazing set of complex skills that takes years and years to develop. If we want our kids to develop a love for this great game, they have to feel like they can succeed. As coaches and parents we can help by not focussing so much on outcomes and more on the learning process. However that’s a challenge when 60 times a year (at least) we broadcast the game outcomes across the Internet and have massive scoreboards that everyone in the rink can see how our team and our players measure up.

I know we all want our kids to be successful and that we will do pretty much whatever it takes to give them the opportunity to go as far in hockey as they possibly can. The best path to this goal is not intuitive and “common sense” will not get us there. Sometimes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I hope that this information will help you negotiate some of the challenges that you will face as a coach or parent (or both). Hockey is a great game and it’s at its best when the kids are having fun.

Yours in Hockey;

John

Very little glory is paid to the lowly technique of dumping a puck in. From comments like “Why would you give up the puck in the first place?” to “Only 4th line grinders need to dump the puck.”, respect for this element in the game of hockey probably couldn’t be much more diminished in these halcyon days of puck possession.

So I want to bring some love to dump-ins (probably because I was, and am still, a fourth line grinder). Shed some light on this overlooked skill that even the most skilled centre must do from time to time. Since you have to do it, you may as well do it right, right?

Two Golden Rules

For me, there are two things that you cannot do, on pain of death, if you are going to dump the puck.

1. Never, ever, ever, hit the defending team in the shin pads on a dump-in. Never… No, never.

Unfortunately, I see this all the time and I can’t understand it. You have a defender who takes up about 2 feet of the 85-foot width of a rink. You have 83 feet to put the puck through and you still hit them in the shin pads. Why? And double why, can you hit their shin pads but not the net. It’s three times the width.

My opinion is… lack of attention to detail from the player and no reinforcement from the coaches, particularly in practice, when dump-ins are done properly and improperly. If you do not demand proper execution in practice it won’t happen in games.

2. The puck mustn’t end up behind the opposition’s net.

The purpose of the dump-in is to gain a tactical advantage. You cannot take a direct line to the puck if it’s behind the net. This gives the opposition time and space to make something happen. There is no tactical advantage if they have the puck behind their net.

Now I will put my sport psych hat on for a moment here and say that you should always frame a directive with a positive valence (saying what you should do instead of what you shouldn’t). So, when a puck is dumped in, it should end up in a corner. This is a great place to attack and limit the opponent’s options.

Dump-in Execution

There are three ways to get a puck into a corner and which one you choose (a topic for another post) depends on the context in which the player finds himself.

Way #1: The Soft Dump
The player needs a bit of touch to avoid sending the puck behind the net (BAD!) but the puck is laid into corner on the same side of the ice as the player sending the puck in. It’s essentially a chip to space behind the defender.

Way #2: The Cross Dump
In this method, the puck is sent cross-ice into the opposite corner from where the player begins. In my experience, this method has a much lower frequency of shots into the defenders shin pads, but it’s also the toughest one for the same player dumping the puck in to retrieve. You need your teammates to be on board for this to be effective.

Way #3: The Rim
This is the grand daddy of dump-ins and the source of so many blooper goals from peewee through the pros. In this method, the attacking player hammers the puck down the boards where it catches the corner and shoots behind the net to the opposite side. At the young ages hard is the only requirement. Once goalies get mobile and can play pucks, getting the puck up on the glass helps too. Funny hops off the stanchions make it an adventure.

Coach’s Tips

Understanding how the puck deflects off the boards on a dump-in is important. Each rink has it’s own nuances. Whether the one corner has the Zamboni doors or a really lively kick can make a difference in your ability to retrieve the puck. Details matter.

Also, if you are working with young kids on breakouts, this is a great opportunity to start showing them how to dump the puck in properly too. Don’t have them stand around while another line is working. Have them send the puck in or have them predict how the puck will bounce.

SESSION DATES, LOCATIONS, & TIMES

Thursday, April 16th, 2015 – Mohawk Quad Pad 7:15PM – 8:15PM
Friday, April 17th, 2015 – Morgan Firestone A 6PM – 7PM
Friday, April 17th, 2015 – Morgan Firestone A 7PM – 8PM

If you’re interested, send me an email at john@hockey-sense.ca. The cost is $35/session or $100 for all three. We will be taking a maximum of 16 skaters.

Cheers,

John

The key is not the “will to win” – everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important. ~Bobby Knight

The Tryout Prep Training Camp is designed to get players ready to show next year’s coach their best. Whether trying to make a new team or wanting to keep their spot, performing at tryouts is key. This camp gets players into game shape so that their timing is bang on and their on-ice decision making is at its best. Every drill in this camp is selected with a purpose. Each of the hour long sessions will be high tempo with many small area games to foster confidence and competition.

Ice Time: 4 hours
Dates:

• 06 Apr – 6:30-7:30PM, Wentworth Triple Rinks
• 08 Apr – 5:30-6:30PM, Wentworth Triple Rinks
• 09 Apr – 7:00-8:00PM, Wentworth Triple Rinks
• 10 Apr – 7:00-8:00PM, Morgan Firestone A

Here’s one technique that I use to identify my high confidence players from my low confidence players. I’d like to say that I developed this through careful study and systematic research but in reality, I just stumbled across it during one of my practices.

The Confidence Test

So here’s how I “discovered” my confidence test. One of my goalies called in sick right before practice leaving us with only one goalie, no time to bring in another one and a practice plan designed with two goalies in mind. Not a big deal. It happens all the time.

As a coach – it’s not ideal, and as a player – shooting on an empty net just isn’t near as fun, but it’s still an opportunity to work on your shot.

We were running a warm-up shooting drill and at one end there was no goalie (obviously). I encourage my players to always visualize themselves in game situations for every drill we do so they should be shooting like they would in a real game.

In the end with the goalie, the players were working hard to take a quick wrist shot from the high slot. Perfect.

At the other end, it was a gong show. Players were teeing up slap shots from outside the blue line. No one was hitting the net. It was pretty much as far from “game situation” as you could get.

I stopped the drill and reviewed with the players that we’re trying to replicate game situations. We want to be taking quick wrist shots from the high slot; not clappers from centre. Even when there’s no goalie, we should be shooting for “the post and in” with a shot we’d actually use in a game.

Now to ramp up the drill a bit more and to “encourage” the players to hit the net, I added that if you miss the net you get to do ten push-ups.

That simple instruction had such a profound effect on the players. As soon as we fired up the drill again, it was obvious that the players had made a decision either to “shoot to score” and pay the price if they missed or to “shoot to not miss” and never have to do push ups and of course, never score.

The interesting thing was that the players that I could count on in the clutch; those that I would want to have out when we needed to protect a one goal lead; they all shot to score. The players that didn’t do well in pressure situations all chose to shoot not to miss. From these observations my confidence test was born.

Taking Action

It was pretty clear that one group had the confidence in their skill that they would push themselves to their limits while the other group was afraid to make a mistake. The low confidence group purposefully chose not to even try to score just so they wouldn’t fail.

For the low confidence group, it’s important to start building their confidence immediately. Providing opportunities for every player to succeed is key. And so is properly attributing both successes and failures (I’ll talk about this in a future post).

When I Use the “Test”

I try to run a drill or two that features my confidence test at the end of team tryouts. This gives me a baseline for my players and can help me make a few of those tough decisions on whether to sign a player or not.

I’ll also run the confidence test a couple more times through out the season. If I’m doing my job properly I should see more and more players choosing to shoot to score and this is one of the ways I evaluate my success as a coach.

Yours in hockey;

John

Relative Age Effect

As a quick refresher, the RAE is the under-representation in elite level hockey of players born in the last quarter of the year and an over-representation of players born in the first quarter of the year.

This difference is attributed to the developmental advantage those born earlier in the year get at younger age groups. Being nearly a full year older than some of their peers competing for the same spots on elite teams, these first quartile players typically are bigger, more coordinated, and are mentally more mature. Once selected to elite level teams, these players continue separating themselves from those not on elite teams through better coaching and more development opportunities gained in training and competing at a higher level.

2013 World Juniors

I thought it would be interesting to look at the 2013 IIHF Under-20 World Championships and see if the RAE was a factor in team selection at the top junior level. I pulled each of the ten competing team’s rosters from the official tournament site (http://www.worldjunior2013.com) and grabbed the birth months of all 23 players listed for each of the teams. Next, I categorized the birth months into quartiles (Q1:Jan-Mar, Q2:Apr-Jun, Q3:Jul-Sep, Q4:Oct-Dec) and put together the graph below showing both individual teams and the total across all teams.

Looking across all players in the tournament, the RAE is evident. First quartile players account for more than 36% while fourth quartile players contribute just about 15%. So things haven’t really changed since the 1980’s when the RAE was first documented.

There does seem to be some interesting things going on with the individual team data. While seven of the teams follow the expected pattern of fourth quartile born players being fewest, three teams; Czech Republic, Germany, and Latvia, do not. Since this is a small sample size, it could just be something unique to this year’s teams. Looking back over the last several U20 world championships will be the next step to see if this is typical of these countries.

Other, more interesting things could be going on with these countries. I’m assuming that since the IIHF uses a 31 Dec cutoff date for this tournament, as does Canada and the US for their youth hockey programs, that so do all the other participating countries. This may not be the case and would affect the RAE. Please post in the comments if you know that any of the participating countries use a different cutoff for their youth hockey.

The number of hockey players within a country may also factor into the RAE. If a country has a small number of hockey participants in youth hockey, organizing teams by a single birth year may be challenging and having two or maybe even three birth years playing on a single team may be the only way to have enough players to fill teams. At this time this is just speculation but it’s something worth looking at.

For now it seems that the RAE is something that is part of the game. Is there something that can be done to limit its impact on the development of hockey players? Some organizations in other sports have started rotating the cutoff date so that it’s not always the same group of athletes that are the youngest on the team. What do you think of this idea? Can it work? If you have any ideas, please share them with me in the comments.

Yours in hockey,

John