Would you be willing to climb up a learning curve with your team even when the curve starts pretty flat?
What if it looked like this…
If you had to start the year 0-8 but you got to finish the year 30-12…
Would you do it?
Developing Players on Offense
When you play real offense on a line rush and look to create, it looks different than the current standard.
Rush after rush, at most levels of hockey, players skate straight down the ice. The player is perfectly okay with skating off of the defenseman’s inside shoulder(which is what he wants), and the offensive player skates the same speed until they chip the puck deep.
But, they avoid that turnover that our coach doesn’t want us to make… and call that “success.”
We take full possession and just turned it into a bet. Turning 100% possession into a loose puck doesn’t sound like the best version of offense.
Why are they staying in the same lane? If they are staying in the same lane, are they using crossovers to make micro changes to the angle of attack?
Are they changing speed?
Are they off the wall so even if they don’t gain entry into the zone they can cutback and regroup only to try to attack again?
Our point.
Being risk-averse (all the time) does not develop hockey players.
Is there a time and a place to learn to protect a lead with 3 minutes left at development levels of hockey? Maybe.
Would they be better served knowing when to attack and when to cutback?
When to speed up or when to slow down?
When and how to change lanes with skating or passing to change the shape of the defense?
How building space by becoming a deep posted player in the NZ can create space for other players underneath?
Yes, there is a time to “play behind the defense” but that time is not “all the time”
Most 14u,16u, and even 18u defensemen don’t have an incredible ability to gap up consistently enough to warrant as many chips as I see watching games.
Unwilling= “Undeveloping”(you’re making them worse)
Coaches need to assume more personal responsibility for the development of their team and the individuals on it. Too many times coaches are scared of going all-in towards development because of the fear of looking lost. They inaccurately take every play their team makes as a personal affront to their character and coaching abilities, and when things go wrong or look messy it makes them look like a bad coach in other’s eyes.
Instead of working their way through these “messy” phases, they fall back into what they perceive works and keep everything simple. Even though they may win some games, they aren’t making their players or team any better. More coaches need to look at:
What they have
Think critically about how they can make each player better
Be honest with themselves on how it is going to look
Will there be speedbumps? Yes.
Will there be nights where your team looks completely lost? Yes.
But you’re not only preparing them for their future playing careers by equipping them with problem-solving abilities and experience in working through adversity, this isn't the last time in their life they will be faced with a situation like this. Now they know how to handle it.
If their coach aborts the development mission at the first sign of trouble and then blames his team for just not being good enough, what is that teaching the team?
If the players aren’t grasping the concepts and transferring them to games, then do a better job teaching it.
It’s a partnership between player and coach to trust that there is a plan in place and we are getting better each and every day. The fear of change and the unknown can lead to the same ideas being recycled and coaches “undeveloping” their players in the long haul. If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse.
So...
Will we not or can we not teach it?
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