Coaches win by the way they conduct practice
By Jack Blatherwick
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist

One of the most important jobs of a coach — at any level — is to ensure that each practice is challenging and constructive. There is no better reward for motivated athletes. 

However, at the youth level, many kids are not yet highly motivated, and most have not experienced firsthand the connection between hard work and improvement – the sheer joy of learning.

It would seem to this novice – having never coached at a level where players need help tying their skates – that one of the primary lessons must be to make this connection obvious. Practices must always be about improvement – not necessarily entertainment. Kids should know – and coaches should remind them a hundred times – how much better they’ve gotten at a certain skill.

I’m advocating constructive practices, not necessarily entertaining ones, because there is a growing trend toward making youth hockey as entertaining as a TV show, increasing the glitz at games, passing out trophies to consolation losers in weekend tournaments, singling out individuals as if they did it themselves, making practices “fun” by adding games that don’t resemble hockey — all in an effort to entertain.

As if hockey should be in competition with TV.

Please don’t misunderstand; I’m not saying entertainment is bad. I’ve seen great coaches at every level, and no two  of them do it the same way. Some are entertainers; some are not. Some believe in a lot of variety – day-to-day or minute-to-minute; some might stick with the same drill for 45 minutes, boring a casual observer to tears. Some yell; others talk quietly; some say very little.

Some believe that players should laugh in practice; others are dead serious and their players wouldn’t think of laughing – at least when the coach is looking.

However, one of the common denominators is that every great hockey coach is absolutely passionate about practice – passionate enough to plan for hours – and excited to get on the ice and orchestrate improvement. This is where a great coach makes a difference. Kids are pretty darn good at having fun on their own – at finding entertainment – at laughing.

But even the most motivated players are not often capable of practicing constructively without coaches. As they get older, some might practice very hard – even to the point of overtraining, but it is simply not in the nature of most players to practice skills uncomfortably – the way those skills are likely to be tested in a game.

This is what the old Soviet coaches like Anatoli Tarasov did better than most.  They constantly pushed players out of their comfort zone – not just in practicing at a faster pace, but elevating the comfort zone of every skill. When players could shoot, then they were pushed to shoot in awkward situations — the way it would be in the most intense games. Multi-tasking: stickhandling while skating and looking for other players to cross paths.

Consider how often in practice a player is forced to shoot before he/she is completely comfortable – before dribbling and coasting to get ready. Stop to think about the drills we design where the shooter is skating straight at the net from the neutral zone. In a game, practically no shot will be made under these comfortable conditions. Instead, the shot will have to be released instantly after making a quick cut to the side to gain some space from the D.

If players are left to their own practice habits, they will choose to shoot within their comfort zone. It’s much more fun to impress friends with a wicked hard shot when you’re skating straight toward the net. If players made the choice, shooting practice would be dropping a bucket of pucks 20 feet out,  winding up, transferring body weight and leaning into the shot. 

While learning, of course, there must be thousands of shots under these comfortable conditions, just like skating skills must be practiced slowly and perfectly before picking up the pace. There must also be simplified stickhandling drills before doing it while skating at top speed.

However, all skill learning is sequential, and eventually the coach must elevate the comfort zone, or players would rarely be able to get shots off in games. Tarasov said in each of his books, “Players did not like this (pushing them out of their comfort zone). They complained to the coaches, but we told them this is the way it would be. We are not here to entertain you.”

Then the coaches made practices even more uncomfortable — sometimes tripping players as they skated past them — sometimes dulling the edges of skate blades — but always pushing them into more stressful situations in practice. Then the games would be comfortable for the Soviets and stressful for their opponents.

We are not here to entertain you. I don’t think that line will make it into HOCKEY MOM’S publication.

Constructive … that’s the operative word; not entertaining. The critical coaching step is thorough planning. If coaches have a clear picture before practice exactly where the improvement should come, players will feel the difference by the end of the hour. This is the first step in learning the simple equation: Fun = Improvement.

Jack Blatherwick, Ph.D., is a physiologist for the Washington Capitals.