More on Floorball & Hockey

I love that Craig Shaw got me going on this topic (see our earlier exchanges), and he also inspired the post I ultimately did on “Exploring the Benefits of Floorball“.

With that, here’s …

– Dennis Chighisola

More on Floorball & Hockey

As every long-time member knows, I’m always looking for ways to help my players.  However, there’s more to that short statement than one might believe.

For sure, I’m always looking for ways to help my players take their games to new levels.  (Of course, that was a given.)

At the same time, I’m forever searching for ways to help my players become truly unique.  And, that one just might need a bit more explaining…

What I’m getting at is that I’d like my guys to ultimately be able to do things that no one else can do.   Hey, I’m guessing Bobby Orr developed a lot of his never-before-seen moves out on the river in Parry Sound, Ontario.  I sure would like to know when the likes of a Boom Boom Geffrion got the idea to blast the first known slapshots.  And, I’d love to know who the player was — or what the circumstances were — that initiated things like the stickhandling move called the toe-over pull.

Ya, my hope is that by virtue of my players training differently — or doing some things that are quite beyond what others might do, they could just bring to the game an equivalent of the toe-pull, spinarama, or slapshot.

Oh, I’m not aiming to create the next Orr or Geffrion.  But, I think it is possible to encourage players to be unique in some ways.

Anyway, those who venture to my blog, Coach Chic’s Hockey Diary, might know that I’m really into a couple of social media sites, Twitter and Facebook.  Well, don’t you know that I was wondering around Facebook earlier today and laughed out loud when I came across a group devoted solely to Floorball (<= check it out)!

I doubt the owners of that page would mind if I copied and pasted some of the introduction from there.  So, here goes…

Floorball, a type of floor hockey, is an indoor team sport which was developed in the 1970s. It is a fast paced sport, with limited physical contact allowed. Floorball is most popular in areas where the sport has developed the longest, such as the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland. The game is played indoors on a gym floor, making it a year-round sport at the amateur and professional levels. There are professional leagues, such as Finland‘s Salibandyliiga and Sweden‘s Svenska Superligan.

While there are 49 members of the International Floorball Federation (IFF), the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland have finished in most of the coveted 1st, 2nd and 3rd places at the Floorball World Championships.

In addition to those four countries, floorball is gaining popularity in countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore and the United States.

Yes, evidently, that sport is gaining popularity in Craig’s country (Canada) and mine (the United States).  A quick search on Google showed the following US based programs…

• Austin Floorball Club – Austin, Texas.
• Caltech Floorball Club – Located in California.
• EBC Floor Hockey – Located in Michigan.
• Innebandy Chicago – Floorball league located in Illinois.
• MIT Floorball Club – in Massachusetts.
• NYC Floorball – New York City.
• Triangle Floorball Club – Raleigh, North Carolina.
• The Valhalla Warriors – In Mountain View, California.

I find it interesting that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is only about 30-miles away from me, in Boston, MA.  (Ironically, I used to provide hockey skill instructions to the MIT Women’s Hockey Team.)

Okay, so you want to know about my fascination with that sport (and Craig’s)?  Just have a look at another stick-skills demonstration borrowed from YouTube.com…

Now, having seen that (and the video I showed you in the previous post), does it remind you of the college goal that had the hockey world abuzz several years ago — I mean the one where the player held the puck on his blade just before slinging it over the unsuspecting goaltender’s shoulder?  And, that’s what I was getting at up above, when I said I’d like my players to be creative like that, and possibly even come-up with a new and surprising move like that one.

Finally (if there ever can be a finally on this type of topic), I’m going to suggest a few things — to Craig and all my other CoachChic.com friends…

• If I had a very young player at home, I might be inclined to seek a league for him or her, or maybe even start one.
• If you have an older youth player (or if you’re an adult player), I’d probably gather a number of those videos available over on YouTube.com, and see if the creative juices start flowing from watching those.
• If you work with a number of different age groups, as I do, I’d probably suggest the second approach.  Ya, that’s what I think I’m going to do — I’ll collect a few of those stickhandling videos and post them to each team’s site, and then prod my players to copy some of those moves.

PS:  As an afterthought, I just did a quick Internet search for “floorball equipment”, and I grabbed the first site with a recognizable name.  (Actually, Craig, I noticed a site located out your way, in British Columbia.)  And, I was surprised that the gear seems easily available and rather inexpensive…  Floorball Equipment That’s just a sample site, though, and I’ll bet you can get even better buys with a little more searching.

Exploring the Benefits of Floorball

Let me begin by thanking a really active member of CoachChic.com, Craig Shaw, for reminding me about this truly fascinating sport.  And, yes — to two things:

1) I’ve actually known about this game for a number of years;
2) “floorball” truly is a “sport” (as you’re about to see)!

Exploring the Benefits of Floorball

To be honest, the term “floorball” didn’t really strike a chord with me — until I looked it up.  (Actually, I think most of the print and narration was in every language BUT English when I long ago ran across that game.)

Of course, I’m sure Craig would believe anything about this old coach by now — like, the further something is from tradition, the more likely I’ve explored it. 

That said, you just have to take a look at the following video to realize that floorball is NOT your typical street hockey game played in a gym.  As a matter of fact, the following is from the World Floorball Championships (yes, “WORLD Championships”).  But, take a look before I go on further…

Aha, I hope you found that game as interesting as I did when I first stumbled upon it (probably 6- or 7-years ago).

By the way…  It appears to me that floorball playing nations are as passionate (or maybe as nuts) about their sport as many soccer-serious countries are about their game.  And, if you don’t believe me, I think you’ll get a kick out of all the trash talking going on in the Comments area for that video over at YouTube.com.

Back to my initially discovering the game, though…  You should know that it wasn’t the sport itself that caught my fancy…  Naw, the skills exhibited by some of the floorball players was what really got me thinking.  So, take a look at just one example of what I mean…

Now, most long-time friends know that my grandson, Anthony Chic, is somewhat the magician with a puck (or ball).  But, the day I discovered a batch of videos like the above one, I asked him if he could do those tricks.  “No way!  That’s impossible!” was his reply.

Really, I was only teasing Tony C.   From what I can gather, the floorball stick is lighter than our ice hockey sticks, it’s obviously shorter, I know that the blade has holes in it — probably to allow air to flow through, and I sense that the ball is considerably lighter than what a North American kid would typically fiddle with.

Finally, Craig asked if I thought floorball skills would help an ice hockey player.  Ha!  I would say, “Absolutely!”  (Hey, Craig, why do you think I long ago burned a whole bunch of videos like those above to CD, and added them to my New England Hockey Institute library?)

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Well, what do you think, folks?  Please leave a Comment below and let me know!

My HS Prep Hockey Team Returns to the Lab

It was fun to recently greet my 2010 New England Hockey Institute HS Prep hockey team, as they returned to The MOTION Lab.  Of course, most players were returnees, while just a few new kids replaced those who had graduated or moved on.

– Dennis Chighisola

My HS Prep Hockey Team Returns to the Lab

Before getting underway, I’m hoping that you’ve already seen my video series, “You Don’t Need Ice!“, because I’ll be referring to it often as we move into the summer months and then on to the regular season.  (If you haven’t yet done so, use the above link and sign-up quickly, because I’ll be removing that information as it becomes rather passe.  Also, you’ll want to be on my mailing list so you’re notified in advance about a few special events I’ll be announcing shortly.)

As for my views on the spring and summer, they have a lot to do with how I see the season just completed…  I mean, players have been pretty much beat-up over the long winter — both physically and mentally, which means they need some time to lick their wounds and to clear their minds.  (Come to think of it, don’t parents also need a little break after a long, grueling season?)

None of the above means that a player should just veg over the off-season months.  No, some sort of active relaxation is ideal for the spring.  And, for that, I usually suggest my players participate in a spring sport (other than hockey).

By the way, as a coach responsible for the development of a lot players, I really have to pick and choose my own breaks wisely.  So, I’ll usually alternate three main areas this time of year — studying or organizing for my players’ sake, taking some personal time, as well as working on lots of non-team hockey stuff.  I highly recommend other coaches do something similar.  Or, at the very least, don’t wait until the fall to start thinking about your team.  As with many other things, what we get accomplished in advance usually pays huge dividends for a long time to come.

Now, I almost always bring my high school guys into the Lab sometime around the end of May or early in June.  That gives most of them plenty of time away from hockey, or a chance to complete their school and other sport commitments.

As I offer in numerous ways throughout this site, I always have an end-goal for my guys, which includes what I’ll call for now a “ready date”, the amount of time we have until that date, and a list of skills or qualities I’ll want me kids to have under their belts by then.  As for my HS Prep team’s ready date, it’s the first Monday after Thanksgiving.  That’s when all Massachusetts based high school hockey teams are permitted to hold their first tryouts.

So, if you can appreciate what I just suggested, there is absolutely no need for my guys to be at the top of their game — right now, in July, August, September or October.  Oh, they want to be well on their way.  But, there’s only one period that truly matters — again, that first Monday after our US Thanksgiving.

That said, our earliest Lab training sessions are VERY low-key.  My aim is to ease the kids back into hockey.  And, I mean that I want to just gradually get them into the physical stuff, while at the same time not yet putting them through any real mental drudgery.  (My players know I’m not easy on them, by any means.  Still, there’s a time to push, and this definitely is not the time.)

So, for now, the training mostly about technique.  There’s a very good chance my guys’ skating mechanics are off.  And, because they most likely had to scramble their butts-off to compete in winter games, they’ve probably missed the chance to work on new puckhandling moves, passing skills, or scoring plays.  In fact, because their main job was to just do the best they could in games, it’s going to ultimately help my kids if I help them re-master a number of their defensive skills.

As for the lesson plan I designed for these earliest Lab sessions, they mostly have to do with “muscle memory”.  For new members who don’t recognize that term, let me say that, “A player does in a game whatever he or she has done the most to that point.”

In other words, if you swing a baseball bat in practice to include a hitch of some sort — and, if you ultimately do that faulty swing more times than you swing correctly, you can be sure that hitch is going to be present when you enter a game.

Then, as a preface to telling you about the drills we used, let me also point-out that I always build a warm-up routine to accomplish a number of things.  Sure, the idea is to warm the body.  However, rather than waste time, I will usually build our warm-ups to include exercises that also teach or enhance some key skills.

With that, here are the drills…

Rope Skipping — The kids begin with light skipping, aimed at warming them a bit, and also encouraging them to develop coordination and lightness on their feet.

Skip Ball Hops — The little gadget we use has several names, but you’ll see it used in the video that follows.  I’m chuckling as I write this but, while most of my kids have become accomplished rope skippers, the idea of this very different type of device really challenges their neuro-muscular systems. 

T-cord Simulations — Very shortly, my guys are going to start using the Techni-cords.  However, I developed this rather slo-mo drill as sort of a prerequisite.  In essence, a player practices sitting low, and then moving from one skating posture to another (as in striding from the left to the right), over and over again.  Yup, this is all about muscle memory.

Players actually rotate through the above three drills three times, so that they’re fairly warmed as they move into the next drills.

Agility Ladder –  Right now I’m just re-familiarizing my kids with the basic movements.  I’m also demanding that they get back to good technique at this time.  Hey, we can shoot for real fast footwork a little later down the line.

Tumbling Mat Work — I put this one in especially to get my new players familiar with the forward roll (and I spent extra time helping them with this).  As everyone got the hang of it, I had them start tumbling with a stick in their hands.  Still later, I had the boys bring a ball along with them.

Knee Dribble Progressions – My guys actually wear the “Dribble Aids” described in the “You Don’t Need Ice!” series, attempting to keep their eyes-up as they dribble.  From there, they lower to either and both knees, and even attempt to keep dribbling as they sit.  Beyond not looking down, the idea of this drill is for the kids to 1) keep their sticks moving as they move their bodies, and 2) keep their stick-blades flat no matter their poster.

3-puck Dribbling Drill — This one was aimed at helping the guys get their “hands” back again.  When you see the video, you’ll notice the layout of three pucks pretty much allows for (or encourages) all sorts of movements with the stick.  Then, after a few sessions, I actually extended the kids’ reach by moving the pucks further apart, and I made things more difficult by having them balance on small blocks as they dribbled.

Simulated Slap — I had the guys take turns working only on their slapshot motion (no pucks involved).  I asked them to keep their eyes on the nearby mirror, to encourage split vision, and I gradually asked them to work on a quicker and quicker stick.

Okay, it’s time to show you the video.  You might have to go back and forth through the drill descriptions and the video clips now and then.  But, I think the combination should give you a pretty good sense of what we’ve been doing in the Lab lately.  (By the way, failing to get clips of all the drills demonstrated by my current HS Prep players, I found some substitute footage of past students to fill-in.)

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Weighted Rope Skills –  Oh, talk about screwing-up my guys’ neuro-muscular systems…  At the end of their workouts, I had them go back and forth between their regular ropes and ones I’ve made to be pretty hefty.  If you can sense what’s going on — as they go back and forth between the two very differently weighted ropes…  Man, that heavy one just wouldn’t come around at the same speed as the normal one. 

I did make one mistake in my pre-planning.  And it only took a brief observation of my newest kids to realize their upper bodies were totally out of sync when the tried the T-coard Simulations.  With that…

Rhythm-bar Training — At the end of the video you’ll see that I added some training, again so that my new guys could get the feel of making their skating motion a full body one.

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As a follow-up to the above post: Last night started our third week in the Lab, and I’ve already begun upping the ante.  That’s an important principle of motor learning, you know…

Actually, my old Principles of Motor Learning professor really ruined my day one time, when he informed those in his class something to the effect that, “When you can sit back and admire how good your athletes look in a given drill, that drill has out-lived its usefulness.”

Ugh!  That was always part of the fun in coaching — admiring how good my guys looked in a drill!

However, the old prof was surely correct.  Once a given level of execution is do-able, growth stops.  Or, said yet another way, once there’s no challenge, well…

So, anyway, I added just slight twists to each of the drills I’ve already outlined above.  As an example, in the one where my kids dribble the ball around the three obstacles, I now have them walking back and forth on three blocks, and I eventually added one of those small air-filled cushions for them to balance on while dribbling.

Again, the idea is to just slightly keep upping that ante, or to just keep making a given drill a hair more difficult.

Of course, as I should have made perfectly clear in my “You Don’t Need Ice!” series, each challenge should “transfer” positively to the hockey player’s game.

Readying for My AAA Mite Hockey Team

Within a few days, I’m going to show you some video clips of the training my HS Prep guys are now doing in The MOTION Lab.  That’s one of the things I hope you’ll see as a benefit here — being able to follow along as I assemble one of my teams.

Of course, if you’re not quite dealing with that level, I hope you’ll look forward to my telling you about the others I’ll be coaching over the coming months — including my college aged grandson (as he preps for a return to school), a special group of middle school kids, a Mighty Mite team out of my winter Learn-to clinics, and then the team I’m going to introduce to you to today.

Yes, as I’ve joked to a number of folks lately, that I had a weak moment not too long ago, and agreed to coach a cute and talented group of 8-year olds for the local Bridgewater Bandits.

With that as the introduction, let me now share with you some of the thought processes and other things I’ve done to ready for those young rascals. 

– Dennis Chighisola

Readying for My AAA Mite Hockey Team

By now, a lot of members probably know that I’m not in favor of spring tryouts (you can read my feelings on that subject over at Coach Chic’s Hockey Diary).  Oh, I’m not about to join a new organization and immediately overturn the apple cart, so I selected my team a few months back, and I began plotting my course from there.

As is done with most rather young teams, I selected the best little athletes I could, with no regard for playing position.  And, as you can guess, my initial roster showed about 392 centermen (okay, I exaggerate a bit) and no one who claimed to be a blueliner.  Thank God, however, that my new team parents have all offered to do the right thing for everyone’s sake, trusting that I’ll sort the kids in the best way possible.  (I am pretty good at training defensemen, and I told the parents that.  I also suggested that a youngster’s mastering that position might really help him in future tryouts, and this is surely so.)

Last week we had our first off-season practice.  And, while you can be sure I used that session to get some good teaching done, I was also using it to sort through a number of things I personally needed to get accomplished…

For example, it actually matters to me which way a player shoots.  I mean, I usually like to pair lefties and righties on defense, and I like to also have a lefty and righty on each forward line.  Not that this is always do-able.  But, I can hope.  Anyway, I made sure I recorded the way each player handles his stick, just so I could do some doodling with lines and defense pairs back home between sessions.

I also began the task of sorting forwards from defensemen.  Oh, it’s not an easy thing to do.  But, our team parents already know that I’m just going to be testing kids at first, and they also know that I’ll communicate with them as I get closer and closer to my final decisions.

I’m not sure I can adequately describe the criteria I used to sort the kids position-wise.  I’m sure you realize that there’s more than one kind of “D”, and it takes all kinds to play the different forward positions.  Still, I had some thoughts — or might I say visions? — of what I was looking for as I did the initial groupings.  And, tops on my needs for defense was/is some strength — in the kids’ young bodies, and in their skating posture.  But, more on that stuff as we get into future practices.

For my players’ sake, that first session was about laying some groundwork — or a foundation — for the many things we’ll want to be able to do down the road.

Now, you’ve probably heard me say this too many times already.  But, “Passing skills are absolutely horrible among most North American hockey players!”  Oh, I’m not talking about team tactics here.  No, what I’m getting at are the actual skills involved in passing — as in sending firm, flat, spinning passes, and in catching the dawgoned puck if it’s anywhere near your stick-blade.  That understood, I had the kids initially fire weighted pucks from a distance of about 8′ off the side boards.  Obviously, this helped the kids two-fold — with their shots, and with the sweeping motion required in passing.  Following that, I had partners station themselves cross-ice from each other, so that they had to sling their passes the width of the rink.  (And, yes, we still used the weighted pucks for that exercise.)

Next, I introduced the concept of steering and trapping an opposing puckcarrier (hey, can we get any more fundamental to the checking game than that?).  I wanted control of the kids’ first attempts at this, so I had my volunteer assistants assume positions near a goal line, and I asked each player to make that “bad guy” go one way or the other.  What this entailed, of course, was for my kids to learn how to approach from about a 45-degree angle, thusly taking away one side of the ice and only permitting that mock puckcarrier to have one escape route.  (I hope you appreciate that this is going to be a great skill for all my skaters to ultimately employ — tje forwards needing to do this in our forecheck, and our defensemen needing to trap enemy puckcarriers back in our own end corners.)

Staying with the defensive side of our game, I next matched pairs of kids — facing each other, and I asked one player to move side to side as his partner attempted to mirror those movements.  Again, this shadowing of an opponent is basic to good defense.

We later took the latter drill a step further, this time having one player (without a puck) moving down one side of the ice in a zig-zag manner, with his partner skating backwards and attempting to mirror those movements.  As you can suspect, this drill also gave me the chance to observe some kids I was considering as future “D”.

I next reverted to one of my favorite drills — for any age group, having pairs of kids play tag within the end face-off circles.  And again, this kind of reacting to an opponent is going to really help my kids defend against decent opponents.

Let me interject something here, in that I like to stick with a certain theme for a stretch.  And, by that, I mean that I will do a batch of defense-oriented drills for a time, and then I’ll later switch to offensive-type ones.  If there’s a method to The Old Coach’s madness, it’s that I sense it’s a good thing that the kids “think defensively” for awhile, then switch to ultimately “think offense” for a stretch.

We didn’t have to move our lines  at all (after the tag games), with the next drill having pairs of kids playing keepaway with a puck.  And, if you can picture it, this one is great for my young players’ offensive and defensive skills.

I next introduced my SMG (you know, the simulated goalie that’s a favorite of mine when it comes to encouraging goal-scoring skills).  I first had the kids make some sharp cuts with the puck around some obstacles, finishing with a shot on net.  Then, we followed that with a straight line of obstacles with the kids attempting to make moves on the fake goalie.  And, as usual, I teased the heck out of any youngster who hit the SMG or missed the net!  (In a way, I believe there has to be some reward or slight punishment tied to the results kids achieve on a given drill.  I’m obviously not talking about being mean here.  However, if my little guys tie my slight zingers to their missed goals, I know from experience that I am ultimately going to have 15-skaters who want to bury that biscuit.)

Staying with the offense, I taught the kids a basic pass-receiving maneuver dubbed the “goal line reverse” (you can see that demonstrated and explained in my video on “(Teaching & Troubleshooting) Basic Breakouts“.  They did okay, too, which means we’ll be able to take that skill to the next level pretty shortly, having them receive passes as they negotiate their routes.

Then, since I almost always over-plan my practices, I had to end there, with two more drills still left on my lesson plan.  (Ugh.)

In summarizing things, here are a couple of tips I want to share with my fellow coaching…

1)  I don’t leave much to chance — or to memory, so I list every drill I’m going to do, and I have a pretty good idea of how much time I can spend on it.  (I didn’t itemize the allotted times in this first practice, but I likely will once we get into full swing.)

2)  I think my players — no matter their age — enjoy a quick pace, with lots of drills crammed into whatever time we have together.

3)  Most importantly, I don’t mess with so-called “vanilla drills”, or drills that are more flash than substance.  In other words, I use a drill because it’s accomplishing something.

For example, every single drill I noted above is going somewhere.  Said yet another way, it’s a small sliver of the challenges my kids will face in their games this fall, and it’s most likely being done to lay the foundation for some more complex drills.  Again, no flashy drills that have no real purpose.

4)  I mentioned above that I wanted control in a given drill, and that I accomplished that by having an assistant coach work as the enemy puckcarrier.  I think you can imagine using the opposite approach, with all hell breaking loose if I let two 8-year olds go at each other on that first drill.  Oh, we’ll have live match-ups someday down the road; but, right now is a time when we need control of the drill, and the kids focusing on the main challenge.

Well, that’s it for now.  I think my little guys are on the road to learning some really good stuff.  And, I look forward to sharing our progress in coming weeks and months.  (Oh, and don’t forget that I’ll be doing the same with my other teams, too.)

– Dennis Chighisola

PS:  As good as my little group of Bandits should be, we are still without a goaltender.  So, if you know of a local (MA/RI) 8-year old who might be interested in playing for The Old Coach, please email me!

Oooops!  With the above piece now occupying the front page, I don’t want members to forget the Webinar I announced a few weeks ago.  Please check that out, and make sure I have your email address for when final details are made available.

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As always, I look forward to you adding a Comment down below!

Underlying Problems in Hockey Passing

The following was initiated by a conversation I had with one of my long-time advanced students.  That’s as much as I really want to say about him, because to go more into it would likely embarrass many of his teammates.  Of course, that’s not my aim here at CoachChic.com; what my aim IS, though, is to share certain things with my hockey friends that can change their game — A LOT.

– Dennis Chighisola

Underlying Problems in Hockey Passing

Now, I want to re-establish the fact that the above conversation centered around older guys who play an advanced game, or even what most folks would consider an elite level.  <= THAT, I’ll suggest, is going to be an important point for all members to consider as I move along here.

What arose in our brief talk was the fact that a lot of concessions evidently had to be made for my young friend’s numerous teammates who could not catch passes.  Ya, you read that correctly; most of them can’t easily handle a pass so they can quickly get-on to the next thing they have to do (like shoot or whatever).

As an aside, our conversation also included a little about passing — as in most of those guys not being able to thread a firm, flat pass right onto a teammate’s stick-blade.

That said, I eventually had to add my own two cents worth…  What I need to share — with anyone who will listen — is that there are always underlying reasons for the problems older players experience.

As yet another aside, let me point-out that NHL players have their own skill deficiencies.  That’s why there’s a difference between any pro roster’s top player and the guy or two who is just hanging-on.

In just about every case, the shortcomings of older players have to do with how they were raised in the game.  And that’s what I told my young friend…  In his case, I said that his teammates as far back as in Mites, Squirts and Pee Wees were instructed on the tactical aspects of passing — like, “Don’t hog the puck!” or, “Head-man it as quickly as you can!”

Very seldom do I see youth coaches actually take the time to instruct their players on the “skills of passing and receiving”.  (Actually, the young player I was talking with had to think a bit about that one, because he was fortunate enough to be under my tutelage during those critical skill building years.)

Like so many other individual skills, proper passing and receiving techniques have to be second-nature, or instinctive.  And that means learning them as early as possible, mastering them, and then constantly refreshing them.  (Okay, it might not be as easy as that when it comes to the passing game, because a properly instructed player would best be raised in accordance with the conditions I describe in my Building Blocks Approach to Skills.)

If there’s one huge mistake I see made at our game’s developmental levels, it’s the notion — among parents and coaches, that, “A kid will get it sooner or later.”  And, I’m here (as your trusted adviser?) to tell you it ain’t going to happen.  What will happen is that a player who has had certain skills glossed-over will ultimately learn how to hide those shortcomings.  Oh, sometimes they get him or her cut from a team at some point; sometimes the player just keeps surviving — even at the NHL level.  But, make no mistake about it:  that kind of player IS going to suffer, and he or she is going to spend plenty of frustrating nights out on the ice.  (Come to think of it, so are a lot of teammates going to be frustrated at that player’s lack of skill.)

Okay, so what to do about all this…

- I think we really do need a change in attitude among lower level youth coaches and parents.  Please — from this point forward, know that the little things do matter, and please don’t fall back on that old “A kid will get it sooner or later.”  The chances for that aren’t very good.

- I had thought to make a new video for you on this subject, but I quickly realized I’d already covered most of what needs to be known when it comes to passing and receiving.  So, as soon as you get the chance, I’ll suggest you go here:  Passing & Receiving.  Scroll down to the bottom of that page and work your way upward.  Again, you’ll find a ton of information there — for the player, coach and parent.  And, who knows?  You just might take care of the underlying problems in your youngsters’ passing game before it’s too late.

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