8 Joe Pavelski's NHL's goals
http://www.nhl.com/ice/player.htm?id=8470794
Welcome to SRE Hockey
At SRE Hockey we give young hockey players the environment to discover
the subtleties of the game of hockey and teach hockey skills to all levels of
hockey players with varying levels of skating, stick handling, puck and hockey
skills in a themed small area game environment. We theme small games and
creatively drill to improve hockey skills including game skills through
experiencing skills repetition or facets of the game in themed small area games
and themed drills. We conduct small game clinics and hockey performance skill
camps to enhance the skill of all player levels. This is the best avenue for
those players who want to increase their skill level in all facets of their
performance of the game of ice hockey. Themed small games and themed drills are
intended to teach skaters all hockey skills with emphasis towards the intended
lesson to be learned. Meaning this, as a coach you have to either pre-determine
or stack the odds in the favor of teaching through doing themed small games to
teach the skills that need to be learned. Themed small games are game like
situations that you can put skaters in to learn what skills needs to be taught
for individual and team success. You have to learn skating skills before you can
have puckhandling skills. You have to learn to pass and receive a pass before
you can move the puck in a game situation. Every skill has to be learned
progressively. Enjoy the educational
links below.
Printable Coaches Practice Planner
w/Lines, Line Drills and Full Rink Diagrams
Click the links below:
Hockey
Simulator
Clinics and Camps
Intro to Hockey Skills
Hockey Performance Skills
Power Skating
Puck Handling
Defenseman Skills
10,000 Shot Club
Hockey or Clinic Questions
Sponsors and
Links
Products "Improving the Skills of (y)our Game"
is dedicated to the development and growth of youth hockey. We believe small area games are the best way to have kids learn hockey skills. We use the latest European, Canadian and USA Hockey techniques to teach hockey performance skating, hockey sense and puck skills for young hockey players.
The State of Youth Hockey
When we were kids we played hockey from early morning to way past sunset. We called it pond hockey. Click the following links for Pond Hockey Competitions USA Hockey Championships or "World Pond Hockey Championships". Pond Hockey, Shinny Hockey or Pick-up Hockey when I was a kid meant uncontrolled, free to experiment, learn through success or failure, no coaches, no family screaming, just play for pride, hockey. We met at the neighborhood ice, made up our own rules, threw our sticks in the center, selected them one by one and dropped a puck, every night and every weekend. When one kid had to leave another kid appeared to make sides even. Remember those days? Puck support skills were built keeping the puck away from the other team. Puck control was learned when we wanted to leave with the last puck we owned. Pucks were a dollar then and a dollar now. We policed ourselves and fell in love with our great game of hockey. Those days are gone, gone forever, I hope not? Outdoor ice is hard to come by, families are busier, parents schedules are tighter, municipal budget cuts, whatever it is, those days seem to be the good old days. As unbelievable as it may sound, it was the environment of uncontrolled outdoor ice that built hockey skills. It was those days that let us learn what the game had to teach. We skated non-stop with a puck on our stick. We triangulated, worked give and goes, did Gretzky escapes creating space and time, ripped a quick wrister without ever being taught how or why. We figured it out on our own. We made ourselves available for a pass or looked for someone when we drew the defense to us. We did a toe drag behind the back off the skate to the forehand because you had to keep possession of the puck. We back checked because you wanted the puck, you forechecked because you wanted the puck. Simple wasn't it? No coach hollering instructions, no scorekeeping, no parents harping to and/or from the rink, no expectations, winning meant everything and only for bragging rights that day. We played because we loved to play. What happened to that raw innocence? We got organized, that's what happened.
Being so well organized did some wonderful things but it brought about some negatives as well. The positives are... it made hockey available to those who didn't live in the North or near an outdoor rink or pond. The negatives are... parental pressures and expectations because hockey is expensive and takes time to learn, coaching pressures and expectations because parents expect a lot because of the time and money they are spending. Therefore the kids have or feel elevated pressures and expectations. Pressures and expectations on 7-8 year olds, 9-10 year olds or 11-12 year olds, we (parents and coaches) should be ashamed. Teamwork, accountability and effort in our youth yes, pressures and expectations in our youth, no. Fun is the name of the game in youth hockey and youth sports in general and all sports at any level for that matter. Getting well organized limited their ice time because we who lived near an outdoor ice rink, spent 2-8 hours a day, 90-120 days a year on the ice. Now being more mainstream, parents have to drive kids to rinks and wait for them while getting 50 minutes on ice twice/week with maybe 20-30 minutes of that time effectively practicing hockey skills often times on a 1/2 sheet of ice. The bad news for youth hockey parents is 30-40 hours of practice/year isn't even close to enough to develop any skill set. We used to do that in a winter weekend or week at most. If your kids look like hockey players after 30-40 hours on practice ice per year it is a credit to quality coaching. It is also a product of the unrealistic pressures the coaches are under both organizationally and parentally to fast track teaching hockey skills because of the lack of "Shinny Hockey" time. As a case in point; over the last few years when I get extra/optional ice time I get a 25%-33% turnout. Turnout like that suggests parental pressure is only 1/3 valid at best which means it doesn't warrant much of a second thought. Teach your kids the skills necessary to have a higher level of success tomorrow and at the next level. Don't worry if one parent thinks they have the next Gretzky, Lemieux or Crosby or if a Pee Wee State Championship will get their kid a D1 scholarship. Increase each kids skill level and ensure they enjoy developing their skills, make the drills fun, fast and competitive. In my opinion, that is how coaches should look at it. Small Area Games
We put fun into learning hockey skills because
hockey is fun to play.
Parents, please click
the USA
Hockey logo below before reading on. We thank all parents because
without you and your sacrifice(s), our kids don't play the greatest game there
is.
Minnesota Hockey article on youth hockey philosophy and youth hockey direction
Learning and Enjoying Hockey
Have you ever studied for a test and not truly "learned"? Of course you have. Have you lived a life experience and not
forgotten it? All the time. When you have lived the learned lesson it stays with
you for life.
When the coach X's and O's all practice long,
it's like you are studying for a test. When you have studied for a hockey game you have to think on the ice.
When you think on the ice you get heavy skates, slow and indecisive. When you have played more
game situations, you learn, so you can react, assuming you have the needed skill
set of skating, puck handling, passing and shooting skills. From this
point forward we assume an average to above average skill set. Only when
you have learned, can you act and react. When you can act and react, you can add
read into the equation. You can't think and play hockey, thinking paralyzes you,
thinking gives you cement skates.
Thinking on the ice also gives you a tendency to float. When you think and then act
the puck is usually going the wrong way. When you read, act and react you
typically can anticipate the play you can make the play.
Our driving philosophy is...
"If you teach a kid
something, you deprive them the privilege of learning it on their own".
Our secondary philosophies are...
"As coaches/teachers/adults it is our responsibility to best position kids to
experience individual learning".
"Habits are hard to break, make good ones".
You can have a coach teach positioning and X and O the kids to no end while they are slow to act and react....or you can live it in real or faster time and time again and have it become second nature. Hockey is so fast and so mistake ridden that reading, action and reaction has to be second nature. We again assume the skater has the necessary skill set for their age group. How do you get the necessary skating and puck skills? Quality coaching, repetition and perfect practice. Not practice makes perfect but perfect practice makes perfect.
Small Area Games
"The Hockey Sense, Skill Builder"
Small area hockey games give players an opportunity to skate more, carry the puck more, make more passes, transition from O to D more and shoot more in one game than many do in a season. Especially average or below average skaters and players. In small area games, including 3x3 half ice or cross ice you will have players make more decisions and play and transition faster than any other way. 3x3 half ice for 1 hour is equivalent to more than 4 hours 5x5 hockey or skill/drill practice based upon touches and experiences.
In 3x3 or other small games you get a fun, fast paced, exciting learning experience. 3on 3's and other small area games build hockey performance skills through experiencing reading and reacting at over speed/under space while learning "hockey sense".
Cross Ice Games with Modified Rules Video
A Hockey Coaches Must Read
Learning with Small Area
Games
Click the USA Hockey Logo below to learn more about small games.
10 POINTS TO
SRE HOCKEY'S
SUCCESSFUL HOCKEY
1ST MAN TO THE PUCK OR A CLOSE 2ND
BACK CHECK INSIDE OUT
HEAD MAN THE PUCK
DEFEND OUR HOUSE
PLAY AT THEIR END
2 SIDES TO A PUCK
SPREAD THE ICE
DRIVE THE NET
REBOUND
GOAL
Primary Offensive Tactic
Support the Puck
Supporting the puck offers 2 or more options with the puck. One option is always
to dump or ice the puck, we want that to be the last option. Puck support is
important offensively and defensively and in all zones but puck support is most
important in transitional play and entry to the attacking zone. When you support
the puck you make yourself available for a pass or clearing the defenders from
the puck carrier, you can even clear defenders to open other attackers as
supporters. As a rule of thumb the most open area of the ice is the area the
puck just left. As a puck carrier you should always have that area open.....if
your supporter recognizes this and is in that area or going to that area. The
best support is when you have 3 options with at least one of those options
shooting on goal. This opens the puck carriers ice or at worst or leads to a scoring chance because we all know you can pass a puck faster than you can skate the puck.
Primary Defensive Tactic
Take Away Your Opponents Space and/or Time
Taking your opponents space and/or time lets you force how they can play, what they can do with the puck. Take away their space and/or time and they are more likely to make a mistake. If you can read the play, you can get somewhere faster. If you can get somewhere faster on the forecheck, you make your opponent lay an egg or make them give the puck up in your attacking zone. Make them pass without looking or pass where they think their support is but isn't creates turnovers. Hockey is a game of turnovers and transitional play, an average NHL game will have as many as 300 change of possessions. Create more turnovers, be better at transitional play therefore letting you capitalize on some of those created turnovers and you will enjoy more personal success or put simply...you win more often.
SRE Hockey
an SRE Enterprises LLC co.
All Rights Reserved
copyright© 2000
Last updated:
01/30/2009
Thank you to Hockey Coaching ABC's for use of their educational videos