Principles, Not Systems: Part 2
Principle of Play: Shot Selection
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
-Wayne Gretzky
The hot take isn’t that the quote is incorrect, it’s that this quote has been taken out of context and manipulated to encourage volume shooting… Let’s recontextualize and properly place it.
Watch this clip:
One of the principles of play I use is shot selection. I think it’s the most important one.
A starting question might be… If there are higher-value shots, how can we get as many of those as possible?
I use SOO as an acronym for the shots I value. The more letters, the higher the value.
SOO stands for:
S: slot (house)
O: off-pass (pass, tip, rebound)
O: open
The highest value shot is a SOO+. A plus is added when quality is compounded via:
pass across the royal road
pass originates from behind the net
deception pass that holds the goalie in position for longer
A shot w/ a screen (taking the goalie’s eyes away)
Shooter is ‘stick to the middle’ (righty on ‘off-wing’)
Undoing The Gretzky Programming
The Great One has a quote that some of you reading this are already thinking about:
What he doesn’t tell you is… You also miss 100% of the shots you don’t make due to low quality. Then, the question becomes, how do we give ourselves the best chance to score when we shoot? Hope isn’t a strategy. Well it is for the volume shooting guys…
I use an acronym, ABU. Always Be Upgrading.
Did you turn down some good looks to open a teammate for a better look?
How many SOO+ shots did we take?
Here’s an example of not taking a common (quality look) to try and hit the upgrade:
Most hockey players standing where Dach (91 Green) is are teeing off on a flank one-timer. What you turn down is often of greater importance if your team has an ABU mindset. Here’s a breakdown of the tradeoff Dach makes:
Gretzky said what he said, but if you're intentionally looking to upgrade your shot quality like this, the shots you don't take might not matter much because the shots you do take, have a better chance of going in...
How to Practice from an Ecological Lens
Crawley’s Coldstone Shot Upgrade Framework
“Shooting to score is shooting it at the highest probability that the situation or environment puts us in.”
-John Crawley, High Point Lacrosse HC
John continues with an ice cream mental model on the Ecological Lacrosse Podcast:
We qualify our shots as Coldstone Creamery, “Like It, Love It, Gotta Have It.” We’re trying to turn Like Its, to Love Its and Love Its to Gotta Have Its.
If you’re lost, Coldstone doesn’t use ‘small’, ‘medium’ and ‘large’.
Their sizes are phrases, small equates to ‘Like It’:
In the Sherwood Park example above, you can now start to see that Dach turns down a shot they might like or love for one they gotta have. Here’s a thread you can click to expand with more thoughts and examples, remember to watch your hockey games on mute so you don’t get the programming of, ‘He should have shot it there, too fancy’:
ABU mindset is guided by intent.
Commander’s Intent w/ EcoD
‘Commander’s Intent’ is a term from Jocko’s book, Extreme Ownership. In essence, the leader gives the players the ‘goal’, and they are left to accomplish it however they see fit.
In other words…
The ‘what’ is given by the leader, and the ‘how’ is left up to the players. Watch this video:
Tell the players and if they are curious, teach the why behind why you value these shots, then put them in a situation where they can look to create high-value shots for themselves.
Commander’s Intent is Power.
EcoD is Power.
In the EcoD world, they have another name you might hear for this term:
