Coaching

[Jason MacIsaac]

I was wondering. If you have a PeeWee AAA or Bantam AAA team should you skate them to hell. My theory is the ones who want to make it to the NHL will stick it out and the lazy ones will quit. Is this a good theory. In Cape Breton the coaching is so bad it isn't funny. There is no skating, no proper training and no coaching teaching positioning right.

I am only 19 now and there is no way I could get a AAA team. When I do in a few years do you advise me to skate the hell out of the kids in tryouts and take the hardest workers and work with them or take the talented players and hope they develop a work ethic. My main goal is to get the kids at the hight of their development and make them good Junior players.

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[luke34e]

skating them to hell would just make them miserable and not want to go to practises. I would take the most talented ones and some hard workers for the team and then when you get them only skate them to hell as a punishment but you mainly have to work on the things you would do in a game like positioning and systems in a practise

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

skating them to hell would just make them miserable and not want to go to practises. I would take the most talented ones and some hard workers for the team and then when you get them only skate them to hell as a punishment but you mainly have to work on the things you would do in a game like positioning and systems in a practise

I would also work on positional play but I seen enough practices that make me puke. Scimmages during practice? Games are suppost to be fun, practices aren't.

 

[luke34e]

im from NS too by the way

 

[Habsfan 32]

Get the harder working guys with a couple of talented player and put them trough tough practises but dont putt them trough hell just yet but make them work and get them to do skating drills that are fun and that will make them love you as a coach and then you will have the best team and they will have your respect.

 

[BCCHL inactive]

My theory is the ones who want to make it to the NHL will stick it out and the lazy ones will quit. Is this a good theory.

No.

In Peewee AAA, you cannot expect 11-12 year-old kids to have fun if they're being bag skated, nor can you expect them to have the dedication of even a junior hockey player. They are still children in peewee. They are playing for fun more than anything else.

Bantam AAA is a little different because this is when junior scouts first start to look for players. When a player is 13-14, you can then start to assess his dedication to the game, but you can't assess that with bag skating. Even at the bantam age, a coach can easily drive a player away from the game by making simple wrong decisions like that.

Games are suppost to be fun, practices aren't.

Who says that doing drills can't be fun? If all you're going to do is have your team skate lines, circles and do the horseshoe, the players will hate you as a coach. There are tons of drills out there that can be fun because they will challenge the players both mentally and physically.

Peewee and bantam aged players are still kids. They cannot be expected to have the mentalities of an NHL player. Putting these kids through grueling practices on a regular basis will only make them hate their coach and want to quit.

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

No.

In Peewee AAA, you cannot expect 11-12 year-old kids to have fun if they're being bag skated, nor can you expect them to have the dedication of even a junior hockey player. They are still children in peewee. They are playing for fun more than anything else.

Bantam AAA is a little different because this is when junior scouts first start to look for players. When a player is 13-14, you can then start to assess his dedication to the game, but you can't assess that with bag skating. Even at the bantam age, a coach can easily drive a player away from the game by making simple wrong decisions like that.



Who says that doing drills can't be fun? If all you're going to do is have your team skate lines, circles and do the horseshoe, the players will hate you as a coach. There are tons of drills out there that can be fun because they will challenge the players both mentally and physically.

Peewee and bantam aged players are still kids. They cannot be expected to have the mentalities of an NHL player. Putting these kids through grueling practices on a regular basis will only make them hate their coach and want to quit.

How will I drive him away from the game. If he isn't willing to skate at tryouts then he will be cut, its simple as that. That won't drive him away, it will allow him to be lazy at the AA or A level. Tryouts are suppost to be hard....its suppost to divide the good from the bad.

Not once did I say I would continue to skate the kids throughout the season. If I were the coach I would run a hard camp and skate them hard at the start of the season, the legs are everything in hockey. If that is too hard for the kid then he shouldn't play hockey.

 

[IkeaMonkey*]

How will I drive him away from the game. If he isn't willing to skate at tryouts then he will be cut, its simple as that. That won't drive him away, it will allow him to be lazy at the AA or A level. Tryouts are suppost to be hard....its suppost to divide the good from the bad.

Not once did I say I would continue to skate the kids throughout the season. If I were the coach I would run a hard camp and skate them hard at the start of the season, the legs are everything in hockey. If that is too hard for the kid then he shouldn't play hockey.

At 11-12 kids are still learning fundamentals of the game(even though many will claim they know everything at this age). Skating their nuts off is definetly not the way to go. You HAVE to remember, you are dealing with 5th-7th graders here. These kids arent physically mature enough to seriously get the most out of their body in terms of skating, contact etc.

Saying that, 11-12 year old are the KEY years in terms of durability and endurance. As soon as they reach bantam/high school the game and its players are going to get ALOT faster, bigger, stronger etc. Saying that, you need to push them, push them hard, but not to their limit. There is absolutely no need to "see who wants to be in the NHL and who doesnt" at this age.

 

[BCCHL inactive]

Tryouts are suppost to be hard....its suppost to divide the good from the bad.

You don't realize that you are dealing with kids in peewee and bantam.

Nowhere did I say that you shouldn't challenge the players physically. Kids that age should be taught to work hard, but in practice, it should be done with drills that will make the players work hard both physically and mentally. However, if all you want to do is "skate them to hell", you will drive more players away than you will have wanting to stay....and that doesn't mean that they are any better than those you drove away.

Again, don't forget that in peewee you're coaching children, and in bantam you're coaching kids...in every sense of the word.

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

At 11-12 kids are still learning fundamentals of the game(even though many will claim they know everything at this age). Skating their nuts off is definetly not the way to go. You HAVE to remember, you are dealing with 5th-7th graders here. These kids arent physically mature enough to seriously get the most out of their body in terms of skating, contact etc.

Saying that, 11-12 year old are the KEY years in terms of durability and endurance. As soon as they reach bantam/high school the game and its players are going to get ALOT faster, bigger, stronger etc. Saying that, you need to push them, push them hard, but not to their limit. There is absolutely no need to "see who wants to be in the NHL and who doesnt" at this age.

Thats BS. You can allways develop strength and endurence at any age. At 11 and 12 is where the player should learn how to skate properly and develop speed.

 

[IkeaMonkey*]

Thats BS. You can allways develop strength and endurence at any age. At 11 and 12 is where the player should learn how to skate properly and develop speed.

...oh boy.

Why do we never see 6-7 year olds in the gym and 13-14 year olds starting in the gym?? Muscle Growth, Bone Growth, An overall hike in testosterone(which will lead to a natural "drive"), all have to do with strength and conditioning.When is bone growth, muscle growth and a hike in testerone at its peak??? I'll let you answer that. To think that you can develop strength and endurance at any age, is absolutely silly.

 

[usmhuskies]

. Scimmages during practice? Games are suppost to be fun, practices aren't.

Yes they are, espically @ that age...Play small games(put 2 nets @ one end and play the 85 feet 4 on 4 or 3 on 3 from the blueline in) this really helps all skills playing in smaller spaces...Makes them make quicker decisions and so on...If all a coach did was skate during pratice how would you pick up hockey sense, you may have a fast team but they will have no idea what to do with the puck...And hockey snese is what sepreates the good one from the VERY good ones...

 

[Toonces]

...oh boy.

Why do we never see 6-7 year olds in the gym and 13-14 year olds starting in the gym?? Muscle Growth, Bone Growth, An overall hike in testosterone(which will lead to a natural "drive"), all have to do with strength and conditioning.When is bone growth, muscle growth and a hike in testerone at its peak??? I'll let you answer that. To think that you can develop strength and endurance at any age, is absolutely silly.

That and getting them into the gym at too early an age will stunt their growth.

Keep young kids away from weight training.

 

[IkeaMonkey*]

That and getting them into the gym at too early an age will stunt their growth.

Keep young kids away from weight training.

That was my point...

VERY young kids cannot "gain strength" any time they please.

 

[Malefic74]

I side with the majority on this one. Coaching peewee should focus very strongly on the fundamental skills. Stickhandling, passing, skating with the puck, protecting the puck, how to hit, how to take a hit and basic positional plays. Good coaches will find a way to integrate strong skating into drills that focus on those topics.

Bag skating with nary a puck on the ice teaches absolutely nothing. Every time I was a bag skated as a kid was because as a team we played really poorly, or showed little or no effort during the last game.

In Bantam I would agree that conditioning starts to become a factor in seperating good teams from bad ones, but here again if you can integrate all those skating drills with elements of passing and puckhandling your players will be much, much better off for it.

Stickhandling and smart decisions with the puck are the most noticeable between European prospects and Canadian ones, (although it's not as bad as it once was) and the minute you take pucks away form your players you are doing them a huge injustice.

Bag skating is a punishment NOT a drill.

 

[romain_jaime]

I have ben coaching for 3 years now and if there is one thing I have learned is that in peewee and bantam you are coaching children. They will always test your limits as an adult/authority figure and each child responds differently to every situation. Skating them will only make them respect you less from house leagues all the way up to AAA.

The only thing that I have noticed that works it to keep the practice moving smoothly and to change your drills every few minutes. If you do not keep a good routine and/or change the drills often the kids will lose interest and you can call your practice a set back rather then a productive one.

What I suggest is that any drill you do you MUST have pucks involved, when we do our burn outs at the end of practice I insist that the players do them with a puck and their heads up... If not, push-ups !

Hope this helps !

 

[BCCHL inactive]

Bag skating is a punishment NOT a drill.

..And one that should never be used anywhere below Midget AAA. Hell, even a Midget AAA or Jr.A coach could get in major crap from Hockey Canada if he does it bad enough. I remember a few years back, a Jr.A coach did the bucket at centre ice, where you skate until you hurl, and I believe it was one of the reasons he "resigned" as head coach.

If you want to punish kids, just do normal drills without pucks or something like that. Bag skating is like holding a grudge, and you can't hold grudges with kids because they will ALWAYS hold a longer grudge than the coach.

 

[Accord]

The best way to breed a slow skater is to make them hate skating and think of it as boring work rather than fun... it's also a great way to make kids quit the sport. Bag skating is awful, if done enough all it will do is lead to players developing bad habits and very poor techniques. Like stated above, it should only be used for punishments and nothing else. If all you do is skate the kids to hell and back, you'll alienate yourself from the team and the players will not respect you, I wouldn't be surprised if half the team quit after the first week.

It doesn't matter if it's A, AA, or AAA... they are children.