Hockey Gains Come When You Least Expect Them

I have a nice young lady to thank for this entry.  For, you see, my video on “Incredible Stickhandling” (plus the bonus video) has made it just about around the world — even to a lady hockey player from the UK.

Sometime near when she purchased and downloaded those videos, she expressed concerns to me.  (I think she was praying they work, and she was even hoping they worked quickly enough for her next game — gulp, I hate that kind of pressure!)

Anyway, checking in with her earlier today, just to see how she was doing, I sensed she needed just a little more advice — and maybe some support — to go along with what is in those videos.

– Dennis Chighisola

Hockey Gains Come When You Least Expect Them

Now, I know I could take care of this subject with just one very old and time-worn expression, as in, “Rome wasn’t built in a day!”  Ya, that would do it.  But, not really well enough for me (or my young UK friend).

Actually, my brief conversation with her on Facebook earlier today caused me to think back to some times long ago, when I came to sense the title of this post was true, that “hockey gains come when you least expect them”.

The most memorable of the events I recalled today had to do with a hockey mom and dad who came to me one day all excited about the play their son had made in a recent game.  Paraphrasing the way they explained it to me, I guess their boy went on a rush, got tripped-up, fell to his knees, he kept stickhandling while down on the ice, ultimately recovered to his feet, and then fired a nice shot into the opposition net (which is kinda my description of a highlight reel goal).

I tell this story because the drill we use for practicing dribbling while on the knees was one of probably 25 I used regularly in my weekly skills clinic.  Again, it was just one of a bunch of drills, and it probably only received about 4-minutes of attention each week.

As an aside…  That particular drill happens to be in my regular collection for a lot of reasons beyond helping a player with the possibility that he or she might fall to the ice and need to keep puck possession.  I mean, it’s one of those I group under “asymmetric drills”, in that it forces a player to deal with numerous physical challenges at once (a lot like our game demands).  And I also use it to teach puckhandlers to keep adjusting their hands and arms so that their stick-blades stay flat on the ice no matter what posture they’re in.

What I’m really getting at by bringing-up this old story is that I had absolutely no clue if and when that young player would ever get to apply that stickhandling-on-the-knees skill in a game.  And I mean that.

Next, I believe I wrote recently about my mom’s lifelong want to reduce her body weight.    Ya, and knowing her oldest son kinda knows his stuff in that area, she was forever calling me for advice.  However, the problem has always been that mom wanted the weight off NOW.  So she’d starve herself for about 2-days, only to be disappointed when the bathroom scale told her she was the same as before, she’d gained a pound, whatever.  By about her third call to me for help, I told her to hide the dawgoned scale, continue her exercise and diet, and only go by how she was feeling on a given day.  I probably also told her about the building of Rome, or how “gains come when you least expect them”.

I had a similar (but less frustrating) exchange with a young hockey playing guy this spring, this having to do with his strength program.  I sensed that he was as concerned about how he looked as how much strength he gained.  However, when he asked whether just sticking with his program — and not worrying about day to day results — was the right approach, I answered, “Absolutely!”  And I can tell you that I went overboard to promise him that, “Gains come when you least expect them.”

Going back to the kids in my skills courses, no matter the level, I can assure you that even I don’t know when the worked on skills will kick-in to their games.  Nor do I know how long it will take for my High School Prep team’s powerplay or forecheck to gel.  There just isn’t a scientific law for this kind of thing — like it takes 3 practices for high school guys to learn their defensive zone coverage, it takes 4 clinic sessions for my little guys to master their snowplow stops, or it takes 6 sessions at home for my young UK friend to suddenly toast an opponent with an “incredible stickhandling” move.  (Actually, as a coach overseeing these players, I don’t have any expectations beyond the fact that those “gains WILL come when we least expect them”.)

Oh, another aside did just come to mind here…  For, I do almost every year or so run across a player with unique capabilities.  I mean, there are the rare athletes who can almost immediately incorporate a new skill into their game.  (I once suggested to an 8-year old on a game bench that he might try practicing a new move when he returned home from our tournament.  He was one of those rare ones, though, because seconds later he jumped over the boards, grabbed the puck, and executed that very move right their in the game action.  Wow.)

As for the rest of us (mere mortals?), all that I can absolutely promise is that sticking with a given discipline is going to ultimately achieve the desired results.  Again, there’s no time-frame; it’s just going to happen when the athlete’s mind and body decide so.

In fact, here’s a tip for my far away student…  Actually it comes from my late-dad’s bag of coaching tricks (he was a very successful baseball coach).  For, dad always said, “Work hard in practice, and then forget everything you learned when you enter the games.”  Of course, baseball and hockey are very different sports.  However, I can buy his idea of removing too much thinking during a game;  it’s far better that a player practice and practice and practice, and then allow reactions — or spontaneity — to dictate once the puck is dropped for real.

I’d suggest that she work at home on those “Incredible Stickhandling” exercises, with little concern for when the different skills will creep into her game.  And I’d further suggest that she go to her games to just have fun, to just play on her instincts, and allow nature to take its course.  For, as I’ve explained to my mom (ugh), to my students and players, and to young athletes who want to get stronger (or better looking), “gains come when you least expect them.”  (Keep plugging away, P.A.  You’ll be glad you did — in no time.)

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By the way, I’ll shortly explain further about the availability of certain videos for download.  For now, however, here’s the promotional video that goes along with the “Incredible Stickhandling” one….

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And here’s a link to where that and a growing list of videos can be purchased…

“Incredible Stickhandling“

A Great Hockey Conditioning Routine

Great Hockey Conditioning Ideas – Part 2
By Dennis Chighisola

I think it’s important to mention a few things before actually showing you what we’ve been up to.

1. In order for this program to help my players, each exercise and its method of execution is going to have to be as close to their on-ice needs as possible.
2. My kids struggled a number of times when they were working at something that required fine motor skills — like the rope skipping.  So I advised them not to get frustrated…  I told them that their fine motor skills are the first to abandon them as they tire, and that they’ll be less and less affected by that as their conditioning improves.  (By the way, the fine motor skills involved in their game play would include eyesight, stickhandling, and their passing and shooting accuracy.  Ya, maybe a goaltender wouldn’t focus on a speeding puck as well as he’d like, and perhaps a skater might flub the puck or miss on a shot he’d otherwise nail.)
3. At one point during the upcoming video, you’ll hear me tell a player to “Keep going!”  Yes, I explain to my guys that they are forming habits of all kinds during their practices — even up in The MOTION Lab, so I advise them to keep teaching themselves to not stop and sulk for even an instant whenever they experience a problem — in a game or in a practice.

Okay, so what I’ve done is to design almost a simulated game for my high school guys.  Oh, they’re not going to be playing, but they are going to condition themselves in game-like fashion.

During our first week of doing this sort of thing, I told my guys to go fairly easy with the exercises.  “Hey,” I promised them, “by Thanksgiving you’ll be able to skate rings around everyone else!”

Following some exercises that doubled as warm-ups, they enhanced their footwork or puckhandling with some of the drills seen in the video, “A Sneak Peek at My HS Prep Hockey Team’s Training“).

Warm-up accomplished, I started my guys with 7 exercises that were really going to tax them.

Rope Skip with Lateral hops – A player skips the rope at a good pace while also hopping from side to side.

Front Jumps to Box - Keeping their sticks low (when they have them) and holding a decent posture, each player jumps forward and up onto the box, back down, and so forth.

Lateral Jumps to Box – Like above, a player hops up onto the box, but from side to side (which simulates the push-off during skating).

Straddle Hops to Box – Again, a player hops up onto the box, but while performing straddle hops (which also includes some later pushing).

Continuous Rolls – This one is a real killer, as a player executes roll after forward roll.  Players usually become a little dizzy at the end of their turn (to which I’ll often say, “Good, now the game will be easy for you!”)

Coach Chic’s Up/Downs – Similar to the popular exercise known as Turkish Up/Downs, my version has a player holding a weight (and sometimes two weights or a sandbag) in both hands.  In this way I get what I want, which is for the player to get up and go down without the use of his hands.

Sit-ups & Dribble — I wanted my guys to do some sit-ups during this routine, but I thought I’d also get their minds off the core work while also improving their puckhandling.  So, as you’ll see in the video, my guy is dribbling a ball as he does quick sit-ups.

Following that pretty tough workout, the guys cool and do static stretching in hopes they’ll bounce-back quickly.

Okay, here are some video clips of that training I’ve strung together.  I’ll have some further comments to add at the end, as well as an even better description of how I run things…

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(I hate to say it but, it’s pretty noticeable who is and who isn’t in shape at the start, just by observing the pace they work at.  Still, we do have several months to bring everyone along.)

Now, how did I arrive at those particular drills?  Really, what I was looking for were exercises that challenged the whole body.  So, while a number of them are hockey specific, I’m sure my members could come-up with a number of other really challenging movements that involve a player’s total body.

Then, as far as operation goes…

- My kids report to The MOTION Lab in small groups.  No matter, everything is based on us having three playing units in a game.  So, we simulate that same work:rest ratio — or, X-seconds work followed by 2X-seconds rest.  (On a night when we had only two players, we’d just pretend a third guy was there so we could keep the same 1:2 work:rest ratio.)

- I usually had a team dad watching the clock and calling out for the kids to “Change!” (so I could keep focused on the work area).  The players knew they had to make changes quickly — on-the-fly, and you can hear me in the video at least once pushing a youngster to hurry on the twitch.

- I think we may have begun with 10-second shifts during the first weeks.  However, I’ve gradually increased the work times to 15-seconds and then 20-seconds.  The most we’ll probably ever do these drills will be 30-seconds, although I’m not sure that’s necessary.

- To get a decent workout, we usually did two sets of each exercise (but that could be increased if we wanted come even closer to real game length).

- Most of the above drills could be made even more taxing by adding weights or increasing the existing weight.  So, we could actually adjust both the time and resistance for a given movement and get a totally different training effect.  (I likely would lessen the length of a drill if I was going to add more weight.)

- We only do the Lab workouts once per week…

- Of course, this stuff has to blend with our other training sessions — at our other off-ice facility and during our on-ice practices.  So, the accompanying photo shows how a full team can be spread in an open area to do similar drills timed in similar fashion.

- As you may have gathered from some of my other writings, I’m not really a big fan of traditional type aerobic workouts.  What I do try to get is an aerobic training effect in all my practices — off-ice or on-ice.  For example the routine you just watched — although mainly focusing on anaerobic shift work — actually has a cumulative effect.  In other words, the players in that video are aiding their aerobic capacity (and more hockey related) because they stay going for nearly 45-minutes per session.  And I look to do the same on the ice, pushing my players at a fairly rapid pace, from drill to drill to drill, with all that work adding-up over nearly an hour.

Finally, when I mentioned “youngster” up there somewhere, it reminded me to caution you about subjecting a young body (and even a youngster’s psyche) to a routine like this.

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Hey, you know I love your Comments, observations and questions.  Just use the box down below to join me and other in a great hockey conversation!

A Great New Headmanning Drill

Please see Drill Submission Rules and Help areas.

A short story from yours truly (Dennis Chighisola) before I get into this new drill…

Every so often I sense a local coach is grabbing a lot of my methods to bring home to his own team or his own kids.  Of course I find that flattering, and I also welcome the chance to share my experiences with others.

At the same time, I wonder if the coach (or whomever) thinks that what he or she grabbed at that moment in time is all The Old Coach has in his bag of tricks.  I mean, if he or she thought my drills from 2- or 3-years ago were “IT”, they’d be dead-wrong.  Oh, a lot of my practices could LOOK alike — because I surely do keep the best drills for as long as they’re useful.  At the same time, however, I can tell you that my stuff evolves almost every time I run a practice.  (I must have invented about 5 new drills for my little guys’ and gals’ hockey school this summer.)

With that, let me show you what I’m getting at as I present what I believe is…

A Great New Headmanning Drill

Contributor: Dennis Chighisola — Whitman, MA USA

In my estimation, the character on my High School Prep team has changed from last season to the current one.  Gone are some extra-strong puckhandlers, even though I have a ton of very talented young players back for this year.

Actually, because I’ve had a string of teams led by some highly skilled kids, we played a similar style for a number of consecutive seasons.  However, I thought, this year’s squad needed a whole new approach.

Oh, I wanted to keep our emphasis on quick puck movement.  However, this year I figured we could do that better by emphasizing two things:

1. we would be in FAR better condition than any opponent, and
2. we’d base our attack on really, REALLY quick advancement of the puck (by passing, I mean).

As an aside here, understand that I haven’t abandon any of the skills work I’ve always felt important to my kids as they readied for their their high school tryouts.  If there’s been a change this off-season, it’s been that I’ve just changed the emphasis a bit.

Drill Category: Passing, receiving, headmanning the puck

Drill Description:

Okay, I think everyone knows the fastest way to advance the puck is to pass it.  In hockey jargon it’s called “head manning” or “headmanning” or passing the puck quickly ahead.

So my thinking on the current drill was to get my kids used to advancing the puck ahead without much fiddling.  In other words, take a pass and quickly relay it to a teammate up-ice without doing much stickhandling in between.  One guy gets the puck and bang! — he sends it ahead, the next guy gets the puck and likewise quickly sends it up-ice.

The first sketch shows my layout of players in the basic headmanning drill.  I first introduced the drill during the mid-summer, so we were short some skaters with some families being on vacation, whatever.  Actually, one night we were really shorthanded, and I used 3-players on one side of the ice with 4-skaters on the other.  No matter; the drill still worked fine.  And I know I can run the same drill with three or four lines of skaters when the need arises.

Now, before I show you a video of this drill, let me describe what you’re about to see…  My guys will be breaking-out of the zone at the top of the screen, and the drill is started by player #1 positioned with a puck toward the lower blue line.  #1 begins the drill by dumping the puck and retrieving it quickly, then relaying it to #4.  All of the players start moving moving on the attack as #4 quickly passes to #3, #3 passes to #2 who is then in position to start the drill again with a new dump-in.  I don’t show it in the video, but the same thing can be going on in the other line toward the right of the screen.

Okay, here’s the video…

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Now, here’s where my mind starts to racing, and where a drill starts to evolve…

For, you see, it soon struck me that the kind of passes we were doing in the original drill were NOT ideal — I mean, I don’t like players trying to advance the puck to a guy who has his back turned to him.

(Can you smell something burning?  )

Of course, the “high percentage” passes — or the ones that have the best chance at a completion — have a potential receiver slashes across, curling toward, or moving straight across in front of the puck.  Oh, that basic drill was okay for the kids.  Still, with an eye towards teaching better game playing principles, I soon changed things to have a guy from the opposite line slash on something like a 45-degree angle to the puckcarrier for the final pass.

And here’s a video of that drill option in action…

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To be honest, I don’t think either of the above drills were any strokes of genius; hey, they just helped accomplished what we needed to get work on.  That said, though, my mind has been absolutely racing the past few days as I see that basic drill format evolving into something really, really good.  I’m not going to say anything further at this time.  However, can you see the possibilities?  I hope so, because having a little (or a lot of) imagination is a very good thing in coaching.

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Please let me know what you think of this drill.  And, by all means, please let me and other coaches know if you have any ideas in this area.

A Sneak Peek at My HS Prep Hockey Team’s Training

Members can expect that I’ll slowly but surely explain each of the different drills you’ll see highlighted in this hockey video.  As I like to do, I’ll let you know WHY I’m having my kids do a given drill (or form of drilling), and I’ll usually also let you know the important teaching points that go along with each drill.  For the time being though, let me just entertain you a bit with a sneak peek at what we’ve been doing so far…

– Dennis Chighisola

Some Serious Hockey Advice (for Jerry Z, et al)

Despite all the advice I share within these hundreds of pages, I’m going to suggest that the following is as important as any aspiring hockey player (or any human) will ever receive.

Yes, the following was inspired by one of Jerry Z’s recent progress reports — and it’s even connected to a conversation I had the other day with one of my high school players.  But, I wouldn’t want a single player, parent or coach to miss it; I think it’s THAT important.

– Dennis Chighisola

Some Serious Hockey Advice (for Jerry Z, et al)

Oftentimes Jerry’s weekly updates sound as if he’s a little discouraged.  Hey, he’s an older beginner, which doesn’t make progress as easy as if he were 8-years old.  And he’s quite frequently measuring himself against guys who are probably much younger, more athletic, and far ahead of him in hockey playing experience.

As an aside here, I can understand how things go in a game.  I mean, Jerry can feel he’s holding his own for a time, but then he might suddenly feel he’s been embarrassed by a given player, either offensively or defensively.

Over recent weeks I’ve tried to get my buddy focused back to thinking about why he’s playing this game (in his case, roller hockey).  And we also had to give some meaning to the way he’s working so hard behind the scenes to improve his game.  For sure, many of my students have some really challenging goals in mind — maybe surviving the first cuts as high school freshmen, perhaps making their high school varsity team, maybe getting to play in college, or maybe even getting a sniff from the pros.  But, quite obviously, none of those are on the horizon for Jerry or the guys he plays with or against.  (Actually, I am frequently joking back when Jerry writes me about an opponent who takes things far too seriously,  suggesting that, “Those guys should realize there aren’t any NHL scouts in the stands!”)

All that aside, Jerry ultimately reasoned for himself that his main goal should be to have some fun.  And, really, what other reason would there be to go to the rink several nights per week (beyond getting a little exercise, perhaps).

Now, I don’t know if I’ve ever shared with you an exchange I’ve had with my mom through the years…    (I guess family members appreciate that I know my stuff when it comes to weight loss, exercising and such, and they’ll contact me whenever they have a related question.)

Whether comical or sad, the greatest problem I’ve had with my mom through the years was in keeping her motivated — or keeping her spirits up — as she attempted to trim down a bit.

The typical scenario has mom trying my ideas for a week, after which time she’ll complain that it didn’t work.  Of course, one doesn’t have to be an exercise science authority to know that a week isn’t long enough to measure the results of anything.

Actually, I told mom to hide her bathroom scale (that’s how she judges results), and to instead go by how she feels.  I mean, in the short term, a scale can lie for so many reasons — including changes in water retention and the fact that muscle weighs more than fat.

So, if you see where I’m going with this — for Jerry’s sake, you’ll appreciate that I’d prefer that he look long-term for results.  Let’s face it, he can’t expect to drag his Tow-trainer up and down the roadways twice in a week, and then go blow-by all the other skaters the next Tuesday night.  Naw, progress takes time.

Now, as for my young high school player…  I’d like you to appreciate that I try to study each of my players with a couple of major things in mind.  I have to gain a sense of where they’ll be trying-out next winter, I want to list the strengths I’ll want them to build upon, as well as itemize any glaring weaknesses we’ll have to overcome.

In the case of the young forward in question, I think he brings to the table all the things that are typically honed in youth hockey — such as hard skating and aggressiveness.  Not so surprisingly, he also demonstrates several of the shortcomings I almost always see as the result of a typical youth hockey upbringing — namely in the areas of puckhandling, passing, receiving and shooting.

So, last Friday night I was leaving our practice rink.  And, spotting that youngster exiting a different door, I yelled down to him, “How are you feeling?”  His reply, “Not so good.”

Ugh…  You know I couldn’t let things go with that — hey, I don’t want this kid heading home for the weekend with those kinds of feelings.  So, I intercepted him and his mom as their car neared where I was.  Ya, I pretty much had to nip things in the bud right then and there, and tell my young buddy (and his mom) something that I’d later share with Jerry Z.

You see, attempting to make any sort of change has to be done with the long-term in mind.  Moreover, I wanted my high school player and Jerry to understand that there HAVE TO BE some bumps in the road in between.  Actually, my way of phrasing it is that a player generally takes two-steps-forward and then one-step-backward, kinda going up and down as he or she attempts to make changes.

I’ve seen this happen in weightlifting, I’ve seen it happen in speed training, and I’ve seen it with folks like my mom when they’re attempting to lose weight.  In other words, one senses progress, then he or she feels like they’ve gone backwards a bit; they sense more progress, and then they might feel a little discouraged because the next jump forward doesn’t come fast enough.

Getting back to that high school boy again, I am really trying to improve his offensive skills.  Along the way he is struggling sometimes with his shot, and he’s frequently mishandling the puck.  (Trust me, that these occurrences are typical.)  It’s the proverbial one-step-backward part of the equation in my mind, and something that is absolutely necessary to his ultimately taking two-steps-forward.

With that, Jerry Z wrote me this morning with an update covering his games of the past week.  And I could read the (reserved?) excitement in that email, as he described a number of goals he’d scored, as well as a few defensive plays he felt he’d done rightly.

Now, although I shared similar messages with the two guys described above, I’ll suggest that there’s something quite different in the timetables they’re each on…

It should make sense that Jerry just wants to enjoy the game more and more as time goes along.

On the other hand, my high school-er should have only one goal in mind, and I made this abundantly clear to him and his mom…  Massachusetts high school winter sports seasons begin on the first Monday after the US Thanksgiving holiday.  So, everything I do with my HS Prep team is aimed at having them totally ready — I mean above and beyond ready — for that special day.  And, do you want to know something?  It doesn’t matter one iota how good a high school kid is in June, in July, in August, whenever.  All that matters is that he or she is absolutely ready to fly on that special Monday.  (And, let me tell you that that philosophy is awfully hard to sell to a lot of kids, as well as their parents.)

Okay, so you know how my two friends differ in their objectives.  Yet, here’s how their thinking has to be very close to the same…

I hope that they (and everyone else within ear-shot) will subscribe to the old adage that has the turtle ultimately overtaking the hare.  Yup, work slowly and methodically, and I promise you’ll eventually pass a lot of hares.

As difficult as it might be, a player (or maybe his or her parents or coach) has to realize that the “one-step-backward” thing is going to happen.  I hate to say it this way, but you just have to “get over it”.  If there’s some good news, it’s that I can almost guarantee you a “two-steps-forward” phase lies just around the corner.

As happened to Jerry Z this past week, every player should expect that all his or her efforts will ULTIMATELY kick-in.  Oh, I can’t say when, even with 40-plus years in the game.  One just never knows when that’s going to happen.  Unfortunately, though, a lot of folks (including my mom) give-up too early.  That’s why I took the time to encourage that young high school player, that’s why I wanted Jerry to understand what might have just happened to him, and that’s the reason I’ve taken all this time to share these things with you.

Finally, I can always trust someone over on Twitter to supply me an appropriate quote, this one coming from the notable diva, Beverly Sills:

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”

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