(Click tweet to open on Twitter and watch full video)
Do Details, Not Drills
The thing that many of the current players I am coaching do not know about some of the NHL players I’ve had the chance to be around is this…
They extract more out of every single thing they do.
If you watch the video of Sam Lipkin from my above tweet, you’ll notice he’s doing the details not the pregame warmup breakout at half speed with no pressure that everyone sees.
Yesterday my players were half-assing a 4 blueline warmup drill sequence. So I started racking my brain on the fly for something that would click with them.
We failed to scan pre-touch all last weekend in Florida because until 4 weeks ago when they came to this camp, nobody had ever asked them to scan before touching the puck. We got our shit pushed all weekend.
At the shit levels of hockey they currently play, they can spend all of their attention and effort on simply catching the pass, which they still don’t do all the time. Then if they do catch the pass, they have time to look up and begin looking for their next option.
They don’t need to scan pre-touch so they don’t do it.
After learning all weekend by getting beat by NFL scores, that’s a habit they now need.
My advice to them became, ‘Do the details, not the drill.’
Most HS players will mentally check out if a drill is ‘too boring’.
Most NHL players when given a drill that is in every sense of the word ‘below them’ will begin using their brains on how they can make it more difficult or how they can mindfuck themselves to extract value out of it. Make some connection to how this could make them better.
That’s the difference between your current peers and the peers you wish to share the ice with one day.
The people that run through big ice, small ice, big ice triple scans in pre-game warmups in October want to play NHL hockey in June one day…
Even if the drill is repetitive, boring or ‘stupid’ you always have control of yourself. Extract more than others.
The small shit becomes the big shit on a long enough timeline.