Who IS my Competition Anyways…?

“Who is my competition anyways…?” This is the question EVERY player should ask him or herself!

The purpose of this blog is to help build better teams, by providing players, coaches, and parents with useful drills, tools, and information. You often hear me talking about on-ice strategies and tactics, or off-ice drills and workouts that will give you an EDGE over your competition.

They’re all the same… Well… Almost!
As you move into higher levels of play, the skill-sets of each player become more and more similar. Think about it… who scores the most goals at mite hockey? It’s the kid who can skate the fastest! Who scores the most goals at Peewee? Now that most kids can skate, other tactics like shooting, playmaking, and read & react abilities start coming into play. How about at Midget? Juniors? College? NHL? At the top levels of play, the difference in physical skills from the best player on the team to the worst is minimal. So the importance of gaining an EDGE over your competition is even more crucial!

So who’s my competition?
Who exactly is our competition anyways? This is a huge question, and one that every player needs an honest and healthy understanding of.

When we talk about training, and dominating our competition, the first thought that comes to mind is the OTHER team, right? Of course we want to annhialate the other team… we want to be stronger in the corners, meaner in front of the net, faster to the loose puck… we want to think the game faster, and punish them on the scoreboard… right? If that’s not the case for you, then you’re definitely in the wrong sport. In fact, athletics is probably the wrong field for you in general!

But let’s think a little bit deeper on this… what about our own teammates? Could they be competition too? My response would be ABSOLUTELY!

When you no longer have the “buzzer” to signal the end of your shift…
The moment you graduate from “house league” hockey, your teammates become your competition. Obviously, this needs to be HEALTHY competition, with each player working toward a common, team-oriented objective, but nevertheless… its a competition.

As you move into higher levels of play, the players who produce results will see more ice time. Now these results may come in the form of goals and assists, or maybe in terms of physical play. Sometimes results are considered “momentum shifters” such as a big hit, a big save, a fight, or drawing a penalty at a critical time in the game.

The question is… HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SET YOURSELF UP AS A GO-TO PLAYER? How are you going to make sure YOU get the nod over someone else when you’re down by a goal with 3 minutes left in the game? How are you going to establish yourself as a disciplined, gutsy, hard-working grinder that your coach CAN’T AFFORD to sit during the penalty kill?

The humble opinion of yours truly…
My answer is, you must become a STUDENT of the game, in all respects. You have to UNDERSTAND your positioning better than anyone else, and then EXECUTE it with discipline. You have to be mentally tough, responding to pressure with IMPROVED PLAY, rather than disintegrated execution. You have to think, breath, and live the game, not only at the rink, but at home too. You have to be PHYSICALLY tough… never shying away from a hit. You have to be CONFIDENT that you can go into a battle, and come up with the puck.

So what are the key aspects of the game, that player’s should be working on to gain their edge? Here’s a list of the most important items (again in my humble opinion).

On-Ice Factors:

1. Technical Skating – get a solid skating instructor and make sure all aspects of your stride are as efficient as possible. Uncorrected stride problems will hold you back as you progress to higher levels of play.
2. Technical Puck Skills (stickhandling, passing, shooting)
3. Strategic Shot Selection – knowing which shot to use, and where to shoot in a given situation.
4. Positional Play – where to be, when to be there.
5. Tactical Play – what to do when you are in your position (i.e. force vs contain)

Off-Ice Factors:

1. Strength and Conditioning – becoming bigger, faster, and stronger than your competition, with a hockey-specific workout program.
2. Off-ice Mental Training – study positioning, visualization techniques, game film analysis
3. Off-ice Skill Development – many skills can (and should) be developed off the ice… primarily puck skills (stickhandling, passing, shooting, etc.)

If it were easy… Everyone would be doing it!
It’s easy to be pretty good. But becoming EXCELLENT takes complete dedication both on and off the ice. Players at the highest levels understand that hockey is a lifestyle, not a pass time. It takes a lifetime of disciplined execution to achieve excellence in our sport!

On top of all that, you have to be PATIENT. You might not be a go-to player in the coach’s eyes yet. So, take the chance NOW to prepare yourself so that when you get your shot you’re ready to step in and prove that YOU deserve to be there more than your teammate!

There’s an old saying that goes “luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” Prepare yourself now to meet your opportunity, then seize the moment when it comes!

Jeremy

PS – What do you think of my list? Did I forget anything? Leave a comment and let me know what aspects of the game are “MUST HAVES” for you!

Technorati Tags: Best Player, Blog, Buzzer, First Thought, Game, Juniors, League Hockey, Little Bit, Loose Puck, Mite, Nhl, Parents, Peewee, Scoreboard, Skate, Teammates, Workouts

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Starting in July, we will be publishing a monthly newsletter that will be full of our best articles, tips, drills and product reviews.  I encourage you to sign up in the form below or through the link on the right side of the page.

Have a drill or article you want to share, let us know and you can be featured in our newsletter.

Dryland Training Kits from HockeyShot (full review)

Use these Dryland Training Kits from HockeyShot to set up Structured, Well-Organized Dryland Sessions with your Team!

I recently had the opportunity to do a detailed review on HockeyShot’s Dryland Training Kits. So I took my boy Tyler down to the tennis courts to have a workout and make some videos. We had a great workout, and had a blast putting these videos together.

These kits are available in three different sets; the Starter Kit, Premium, and Premium Plus. I reviewed the Starter Kit, and was impressed with how much equipment it came with, even for the lowest-priced option! All three kits are fantastic. The main difference it that the Premium and Premium Plus kits come with more equipment (Speed Chutes & Plyo Hurdles)

In this post, I’m including 6 videos that highlight each product in the Starter Kit, and give a few ideas of drills you can run with each piece of equipment. After you pick up your kit, I recommend watching the instructional DVD that comes with it. The DVD contains over 300 drills… definitely enough to get you started! After that, run a YouTube search on additional drills you can do with the equipment. There’s no shortage of options out there!

So – enjoy the videos, and comment below if you have any questions.

Technorati Tags: Agility Ladder, Balls, Cones, Highlight, Hurdles, Jump Ropes, Sessions, Solid Selection, Starter Kit, Tennis Courts, Versatile Pieces, Videos, Workout

Pucks On The ‘Net: The eBook

Coming in October 2011: GreatestHockeyLegends.com presents Pucks on the ‘Net, an e-book by Joe Pelletier. Foreword by Kirstie McLellan Day

This is Joe Pelletier’s third book release. He has previously released The World Cup of Hockey (co-authored with Patrick Houda) and The Legends of Team Canada. This is his first e-book release.


Kirstie McLellan Day is Canada’s best selling hockey author. She has released Theo Fleury’s autobiography Playing With Fire, and Bob Probert’s autobiography Tough Guy. In 2011 she is releasing Ron MacLean’s autobiography, Cornered.

Praise for Pucks On The ‘Net:

Amongst hockey historians Joe Pelletier takes a back seat to no one. His unparalleled ability to unearth a bountiful of great stories has helped illuminate the continuing story of our country’s national obsession – the great sport of hockey. Speaking for his countless followers, I can testify that this book is not only as entertaining as it is informative, but is also as enlightening as it educational. In other words, it is the best of the best of Joe Pelletier – researcher, historian, writer and one of the most unique voices in the world of hockey literature.

Todd Denault – author of Jacques Plante: The Man Who Changed The Face of Hockey and The Greatest Game

Burkhart 2 on 2 Deflection

Burkhart 2 on 2 Deflection

My good buddy, and assistant coach, Josh Burkhart showed this one to me a couple of years ago. It’s a solid drill that has a pretty quick rotation, so not much standing around once your players pick up the flow of it. Here’s the diagram:

Burkhart 2 on 2 Deflection Drill

1. (F) passes to (D) then drives net
2. D to D pass and shot
3. (F) deflects, then stays in front
4. Other corner passes out to (D) then drives net
5. D to D pass and shot
6. Other (F) deflects
7. (F)’s swing for a breakout pass then attack 2 on 2
8. After second shot, (D)’s back up 2 on 2

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Assistant Coach, Breakout, Good Buddy, Swing

Cheap and Easy Ideas to make Shooting Practice more fun

As a kid I spent a lot of time in my barn shooting pucks. Sometimes I would get tired of shooting at the same four targets (or I would break the targets) so I would always try to think of ways to make target practice a bit more fun. One of my better inventions was a goalie that I made using a sheet of plywood and a jigsaw (being a farm kid I was using power tools around the same time I learned basic math). Eventually I destroyed the goalie, first he lost his goalie stick, then his glove side hand, then his head, but it was a lot of fun shooting on it and creating it.

In this article and video I aim to spark your creative side and help make shooting more fun. In the video I give you a few ideas that just came to me while I was at the dollar store. Below the video I will give you even more things you can use as targets that are FREE.

Fun Shooting Target Video

In this video I am shooting off the roll up shooting pad and using the EZ-Goal (link below)

More ways to add some razzle to your shooting practice

Here are a few more things you can shoot pucks at, all you need is some decent string

• soup cans
• milk jugs
• pop bottles
• pumpkins
• old tires (great to use as a five-hole)
• balloons
• dryer (if you’re Sidney Crosby)
• One more idea is to play music, music can put you in the zone and also keep you shooting for longer.

If you plan on taking a lot of shots I recommend the Ez-Goal with the backstop it gives you a few feet of extra room around the net, that way you don’t have to search for pucks as much. I use it on my net and it has saved me a lot of time and I am not worried about missing when I shoot top corner or bard down.

Leave your ideas for shooting practice in the comments section below

What the OT Game 1 Winner (Kings-Devils) can teach your players

I’ve been thinking about the Game 1 OT winner by the LA Kings in this year’s Stanley Cup Finals and wanted to write-up a few thoughts on the goal.  As a coach, you are always teaching your players and I thought  about 2 very important aspects of the game when I watched this play:

1. Positioning
2. Communication

Take a moment and watch the video.  Pay attention to the first 12 seconds, then pick it up again at 48 seconds and watch from the end of the rink look. 
Note: I left the sound off as I wanted to watch it again to see if I really saw all I did the night I watched it live and not listen to the play by play.

I see several very important factors to why this goal was scored.

1. Player positioning – both on the Defense and the Offense.
   Let’s start with the Defense.  There are several factors that caused this to be a busted play:
   • The Defenseman at the blue line looking for the big hit.  He took himself out of the play by getting tangled up with the player.  As the puck move back out of the zone, he was useless to the play.
   • Both Devils players then pursued the puck and the player on the wall.  As the Defensive player sees the whole ice, he should be able to see that his forward is chasing the guy on the wall.  He should then get back into his Defensive position to play the charging Kings player who is heading up the middle.

   Now for the Offense.  As the puck moves up the wall, Anze Kopitar finds good ice (read more on that here).  He breaks for that open ice up the rink and knows where that puck is going to come out as it’s passed off the wall.  While I wasn’t at rink level (or even at the building), I’m sure he was calling for that puck.  This leads me to my next point.

2. Communication – Both teams should have been talking this play out.
   On the Defensive side, I mentioned above both player pursuing the puck and the player.  They need to talk this out.  The defenseman should not only see the puck but Kopitar breaking the middle.  At that point he should be yelling at the back-checking forward to play the puck and he should be taking the Defensive position on the puck.

   The Offense did it perfectly.  Kopitar sees the open rinks, calls for the puck and Game 1 is history.

As a coach, I find myself watching the game so differently.  The night after this game, I walked into a locker room full of 9/10 year old players talking about the game.  I was pretty proud when I asked them what happened on the play and got a pretty good breakdown from my players of what was done right and what was done wrong.

Team Leadership

I’ve had the pleasure of coaching some really good teams that were pretty talented over the last few years but each has fallen short for various reasons.  This year was puzzling to me as I struggled to wrap my head around the team I saw winning games week in and week out.  Now you may say, why struggle if they are winning games?   Well, I saw a team that lacked leadership.  A team without a player who took control.  Even at a young level, the coach can’t control everything.  The team needs a player or two that are in charge on the deck, in the locker room and even at practice.

It wasn’t until recently that I read this article, that I realized this happens at all levels.
http://triblive.com/sports/penguins/1078828-85/penguins-stanley-team-crosby-cup-flyers-michalek-offseason-letang-malkin

“They aren’t as young anymore, and they have lost three consecutive Stanley Cup playoff series.
What went wrong? And where do they go from here?
Leadership
When the young Penguins surged into the playoffs in 2007 and won the
Stanley Cup two years later, they did so under the guidance of respected
veterans.
Billy Guerin didn’t wear the “C,” but he always pointed captain Sidney Crosby in the right direction.
Sergei Gonchar didn’t tell Evgeni Malkin how to play hockey, but he
was the superstar’s mentor and a calming influence on young players such
as Kris Letang.
There were others, too. Leaders such as Hal Gill and Gary Roberts
took pressure off Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Jordan Staal while passing
along untold wisdom.
When Gonchar departed via free agency in 2010, management made it clear the team now belonged to its youthful stars.
They haven’t won a playoff series since.”

As I approach Evaluations for my team, one of the new criteria I’ll be looking for is ‘Leadership’.  How does the player handle himself around his teammates.  Does he have control and the respect of the other players to lead them through good times and bad.

I think back to a player that I had 2 seasons ago.  Kyle was the vocal leader on the team. He knew when to fire up the players or pull them aside after the coaches were done talking and let them know what needed to be done.  He led, they followed.  He was a true leader and the other players knew it.  I’m hoping to find that player this season.  I see one in the making, so it will be interesting to see how he handles it this coming year.

Accidentally On Purpose by Louise Waronek

A revealing look at the issues and controversies of grassroots level hockey, including everything from children developing life skills to the thrill of playing for the love of the game to high financial obligations, the dangers of hazing rituals, “crazy” hockey parents, and the sometimes too-strong desire for kids to play in the NHL.

It features one Saskatchewan hockey family’s experience, and the growth that the father undergoes as he learns from his mistakes from being a too-involved hockey parent to understanding that hockey is a game that should be enjoyed not pursued as a career by pre-teen children, a message that parents of all athletes can understand.

This fictional account is an interesting take on minor hockey and minor sports in general. Every parent is guilty, to some degree, of taking their child’s athletics too seriously. Some are involved way too much, others lapse in the heat of a big play. So most adults will likely find a little of themselves in this book. Hopefully just enough to remind them of what really is important in kids sports – that the kids are having fun, not that they make it to the big leagues.

Here is an in-depth interview with author Louise Waronek courtesy “Down From The Peak.”

To purchase your copy of Accidentally on Purpose, contact Louise Waronek by phone at (306) 584-9706 or by email at [email protected].

H is for Hockey: A NHL Alumni Alphabet

“Where was the first organized indoor hockey game played? When did the tradition of engraving winners’ names on the Stanley Cup start? Which six brothers collectively played in more than 5,000 NHL games? Answers to these questions and many more can be found in H Is for Hockey: A NHL Alumni Alphabet.

Formed in 1999, the National Hockey League Alumni Association is affectionately known as “Hockey’s Greatest Family” for good reason. Members of the NHL Alumni are considered hockey ambassadors, supporting the game and its history through many charitable causes and programs.

Written by one of the game’s foremost historians in Kevin Shea, this book pays tribute to them and the sport they love. Adding a personal touch are the memorable quotes sprinkled throughout the text. When 17-year-old Sidney Crosby was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2005, he said, “This is amazing. It’s been a lot of hard work and a lot of sacrifices. It’s unbelievable!””

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca – Chapters – Amazon.com