Going to be a head coach for a peewee house team this year, I have ran a learn to play program for about 2 years at the rink but this will be my first actual team. Do any of you fellow coaches have any pointers or any websites that have good drills for kids getting a late start, a lot of peewee's have been playing since they were 4-5. Most of my team is playing for the first time, I know a few basic drills.
P.S. I also have 2 goalies to split time, not sure if this will be an issue. I have read where some teams play every other game and other teams split the game no matter what. Im thinking of letting this decision up to the players/parents of the goalies.
P.S.S. I also have multiple girls on the team, one of them might be my best player, but any tips on how you handle the locker room, The girls have their own dressing room at our rink but I was thinking more of the pregame talks.
Regarding goalies, I won't comment on playing every other game or splitting games (most goalie parents end up preferring the former, get the goalie in warm and play warm thru the game) but I do have six other pieces of advice re goalies:
1. take a goaltender coaching course (in Canada there is Instructional Stream 1 and 2, 1 would be fine for peewee house but more is better; Pasco wrote the course and teaches it here, I was fortunate to take level 1 from him, ohsix goes to his sessions)
2. have an assistant coach take the goalie course as well
3. give the 2 goalies and the assistant coach (goaltenders) the ice from the top of the circles down for the first 15-20 minutes of practice; work on their down movements. Do NOT have the goalies doing crossovers and laps around the ice with the players, it is a monumental waste of time. This time should be focused on movements, not shots, although shots can be incorporated as part of movement drills; movement (including positioning and stance) is everything for a developing goalie
4. space out the shots on any drill, this refers to the amount of time between shots; the goalie must have time to 1) gain depth 2) decide and execute on save selection 3) track the rebound 4) get re-set and then back to 1) - this takes about 4-6 seconds, so if you have shots coming in faster that this you are compromising your goalies' development
5. Encourage the goalies to take whatever goalie training your association offers
6. Read up about
Head Trajectory, and get them to start doing this. It is way too complicated here, but basically I would suggest leaning forward (both standing and when in butterfly), narrow butterfly, weight over the knee on the side that made the save - this allows for instant unweighting of the other leg into the push position for the backside push to cover any rebound. Narrow butterfly (good) is enough to deflect the puck into the corner, wide butterfly (bad) can deflect the puck back into the kill zone, and even if deflected into corner requires multiple weight shifts to get back into position