Post-Up Half Ice Passing Drill

Every week when I look at the site statistics I see that the half ice drill section is always at or near the top for views. I know many organizations are going to more shared ice practices to save on cost and get players on the ice more often. This new dynamic is causing coaches to seek new drills to work on skills for the whole team while keeping it to half a sheet of ice. I ran this drill with my team last night and it worked nicely once we got the flow right. Make sure F1 comes up high between the D so he can better time his entry back across the blue line. This is a drill that works on quick passing skills as well as a play that your team will use during games, posting up and chip passing to an incoming skater.

If you don’t have access to two nets you can run this with one net in the normal spot, just have all the players on one side of the ice.

Post-Up 5 Pass Drill

Click to Download the  Drill

3 Shot Warm-Up Drill

Here is a simple warm-up drill you can use at the beginning of practice to get the players skating and the goalies seeing shots from all three areas of the ice. Make sure the players are skating hard.

Dombro 3 Shot Warm-Up

Dombro 3 Shot Warm-Up Drill

Many coaches have asked me to provide the DrillDraw files so they can import them. I’m using an external hosting company for the DrillDraw files and this is the first attempt at providing the files, hopefully it will work properly and allow you to download the files with no issues.

Please click the DrillDraw image below to download the file.

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Offensive Tactics with Chris Campanale

Recently my team was having some trouble consistently creating offense. We have a lot of talented players but they were getting lazy and falling back on old bad habits. Sometimes a coach needs to bring in a new voice to speak to the team about some of the concepts he is trying to teach. Chris Campanale is a local professional player who lives in our area and works out at the facility in our rink. I asked Chris if he would be interested in coming out to practice once a week and working with my team on offensive tactics. Chris was very willing to step up and help the younger players develop their offensive skills.

Chris worked with our players once a week for the past three weeks. In the four games before I invited Chris out to skate with us we scored nine goals and went 2-1-1. In the four games since Chris started working with the players we scored 25 goals and went 3-0-1. Now, that is a major turn around and multiple factors played a roll, but Chris’ fundamental tactics were instrumental in the surge in scoring.

Some of the key points.

• Shoot  the puck from good areas of the ice
• Shoot from inside the dots (especially the D)
• Play in the dirty area in front of the net
• Talk, Talk, Talk on the ice

Here are some of the drills Chris ran with the team to work on these fundamentals.

1 on 1 Four Times

3 on 2 Down Low

4 Shot Net Front Battle

Dump In 2 on 1

Three Quarter Ice 3 on 2

In addition to the above drills that Chris worked on here are two others from Coach Cronin former Northeastern University head coach and current assistant in Toronto, that develop similar skills.

Creating Offense

Three Rush Concepts

Also don’t forget about teaching cycling concepts in the offensive zone. Here is something I put together last season for the progression of cycling drills.

Cycle Progression Drills

Teaching offense is always a difficult task for a coach. So many factors play a role in a successful offensive attack, but if you work on fundamental skills and tactics the players can begin to incorporate those ideas into their general knowledge and start making better and smarter plays in the offensive zone. The offensive game isn’t black and white, it’s mostly gray and centered around the fundamental idea of read and react. Try working on drills that teach specific parts of offensive zone play and I think you will begin to see an improvement in your teams ability to create offense.

Unfortunately for us Chris leaves this weekend to start training camp with the Bloomington Thunder and won’t be around to continue helping us out. We all wish him the greatest success and look forward to working with him again in the future.

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Horacek Underneath Drill

I picked this drill up watching former NHL player Tony Horacek running a practice with his team last week. I ran it with my team last night and really liked it. The drill takes a minute for everyone to understand their role but once it gets going it really has the players working to make good passes and understanding the underneath route to making headman passes. I’ve created a quick video to explain the drill just in case the document isn’t clear enough.

Make sure you have the player looping back into the zone make a good hockey stop and quick transition. I told my guys to act like there was a turnover in the neutral zone and they had to quickly get back to defensive positions. Hope you like this drill as much as I do.

Horacek Underneath Passing Drill

Team Canada Passing Drills

Here are a couple of simple but effective passing drills supplied by the coaches of Team Canada.
When working on passing drills make sure your players stay focused on the fundamentals of a good pass.

• Head-up
• Stick on the Ice to receive
• Tape to Tape
• Good Pace on the Pass
• Don’t get lazy and make sloppy passes

Each of these drills are run at full speed with timing involved. Make sure the players accelerate into the receiving zone.

Team Canada 2×0
Team Canada Outlet Pass

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Cornell One Touch Warm-Up

Here is a simple warm-up drill from Cornell university that works on one-touch passing and moving the puck up the wall for a shot on goal. This drill helps develop better passing skills and also helps to warm-up the goaltenders. Make sure to tell the players where to shoot from.I prefer to keep the shots from the tops of the circles.

Cornell One Touch Warm Up

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Behind the Net Forechecking Drill

This is a nice drill to help your defensemen develop good habits against a hard forecheck. The defenseman must shoulder check when he is skating to make sure he knows where the forecheck is coming from and which side of the net to exit to make the pass. Try to make sure the defenseman skates to about the hash marks before making the outlet pass so they get used to coming around the net with the puck. Also make sure you work on having them stay close to the post so the forechecker can’t squeeze in between them and the post.

Behind The Net Forecheck 2 on 1

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2 on 1 – Full Rink

1. F need to focus on first helping out the D and setting up in a ‘break-out’ mode
2. F should also  work on good passing and puck movement to score
3. F should read the play and know when to shoot or pass in the Offensive zone
4. D should focus on a good outlet pass to start the play
5. D hustles to get in a good Defensive position
6. D should work on gap control
7. D should also work on closing the lane and allowing the Goalie to take the shooter 
   

Goalies can be used in this as well.  Allow them to come behind the net and move the puck.

Related Drills:
2 on 1 defensive gap control 
2 on 1 pass to d half rink 

2 on 1 – Full Rink

1. F need to focus on first helping out the D and setting up in a ‘break-out’ mode
2. F should also  work on good passing and puck movement to score
3. F should read the play and know when to shoot or pass in the Offensive zone
4. D should focus on a good outlet pass to start the play
5. D hustles to get in a good Defensive position
6. D should work on gap control
7. D should also work on closing the lane and allowing the Goalie to take the shooter 
   

Goalies can be used in this as well.  Allow them to come behind the net and move the puck.

Related Drills:
2 on 1 defensive gap control 
2 on 1 pass to d half rink 

A Day with Tony Horacek at Midget National Camp

I posted about this before but just in case you don’t remember, my organization has former NHL player Tony Horacek coaching our 16 National program. Tony invited me out to skate with his team yesterday to help with day 2 of his summer camp. I took the opportunity with excitement because I really like watching how other coaches do things and with my summer camp starting next Friday I figured it would give me some ideas on things to add to my program. I’ve watched Tony run practice in the past and admired how up-tempo the skates are and how he handles the team. I wish I could have attended all three days of his camp but with mine coming up next weekend I didn’t have the free time this week to commit. Here is a breakdown of his day 2 camp schedule.

The players started with some basic stretching and skating exercises up and down the ice just to get everyone ready to go at an up-tempo.

We then switched to some simple passing drills, but even though the drill is simple it reinforces the basic skills that all players need to be fundamentally sound on.

Three Short Ice Passing/Skating Drills

Next up were a few simple Neutral Zone passing drills all run at high tempo. Again these are simple drills that we have all run at times but the emphasis was on making and receiving good passes while skating hard. All shots were to be taken from the top of the circles.

3 Neutral Zone Passing Drills

The team then transitioned into a continuous 2 on 0 drill that emphasized the importance of backside support and coming underneath for a pass while the player without the puck skates hard to the front of the net for rebounds.

Continuous 2 on 0

Next up were two drills that worked on gap control for the defensemen. The first drill also emphasized that the forwards have to bust down the outside lane to get around the defense.

1 on 1 Full Ice

2 on 1 Full Ice

The next drill worked on breakouts and using different options off the breakout and finishing up with screen shots from the points. The drill runs from both ends of the ice and has everyone moving. (I have to admit that I did to Tony what I hate my players doing to me…….I skated away from the board before he was done describing the drill because I thought I knew what he wanted and because of that I screwed up the first two or three rotations…….UGH!!!!)

5 on 0 BO with Screen/Deflection Drill

Last up was a conditioning drill that worked on some small area 2 on 0 as well. I can tell you that at the end of this drill all the players were exhausted.

2 on 2 with Backcheck

The session ended with all the players stretching around the center circle and then off to the gym for an hour of core work.  I really had a great time skating with Tony and his team and I appreciate that he offered me the opportunity. As I said, I wish I could have done more so I would have more to pass along to all of you but above is a good practice plan that any of you can run with your teams. Tony did spend some time during the skate working on some defensive scheme concepts which I didn’t include but I think the above is a good practice with lots of hard skating.

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