I want to quickly build on top of a great piece from Greg Revak:
When I go help out at a youth hockey practice, I focus 100% of my attention off-puck.
Because most coaches are fixated with what is going on with the one player that has it.
When everyone is looking right, look left. Doing this has also helped me work on a weakness.
I’ve learned through talking with my girlfriend about dog training, that I needed to improve an area of my coaching… Positive reinforcement.
The Lesson
When a dog is learning a behavior, you have treats ready. When it does the right thing at the right time, it gets a treat.
Slowly but surely, the goal is to remove the treats completely.
Over time, when you call your dog in from outside and it comes running, you don’t need to give it a treat… But you do need to do something…
You need to praise them. Verbally or through affection, attention, rewards, or other means that reinforce the behavior.
So now let’s take this back to hockey.
In youth hockey, there will be a few high hockey IQ players on your team. At 12u those players will start making really smart and timely “runs” to space on the ice where they can get the puck.
And because they are 12, they won’t get the pass from their teammate as often as they might if they were playing in the NHL or USHL.
You might tell your 12u player, “hey, I saw you skate to space there, you didn’t get the puck but keep doing that! It might not happen a lot this year, but I promise, eventually that gets rewarded and high level hockey people will notice you.”
Don’t say something to that effect and…
Those great runs will stop.
If those runs stop, it doesn’t become a habit.
The player now stands around because, “what is the point of doing that if I never get the puck.”
The player is now a worse hockey player with a lower ceiling.
Entirely preventable if you as a coach notice and praise great off-puck movement.
Here’s a soundbite/mantra for you as a coach:
“When a player doesn’t get the treat(the puck on his stick) I still must praise the behavior.”
If it’s not reinforced, it won’t be repeated.
Create better hockey players simply by noticing.
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