Multitasking and Hockey Coaching

You don’t believe the above title and the subject of the video below have to do with hockey?  Please have a look at that video before you read my impressions down below.

– Dennis Chighisola

Multitasking and Hockey Coaching

To begin, understand that Mr Carr is talking about ALL human beings here. And I mention that because it often seems to me that we grownups (like hockey parents and coaches) don’t translate such knowledge to young (or even older) hockey players. The truth is, the very challenges Nicholas Carr describes in the video impact greatly on a hockey player’s ability to focus — in skills training and in game related tactical execution.

Far too often I’ll witness coaches inundating young students with a host of things to consider when they’re attempting to try a new skill. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Give young players a batch of things to think about and they’ll accomplish none of them! In fact, in my motor learning studies, I was taught to begin with the “grossest” or largest problem, help an athlete overcome that, and then move on to the next grossest problem.

I’ve also adapted Mr Carr’s line of thinking to the early part of my team’s hockey season, only asking my players to concentrate on one or two areas of our system or game-play technique during a given game. In other words, while we might be practicing a wide array of tactics and strategies behind the scenes, I’ll ask my players in an early game something like, “Let’s just concentrate on our breakouts tonight.”

Again, any new information we discover having to do with all mankind really does have to do with the way we should handle hockey players.

The Goaler’s Dance

I have been saving this video for the longest time.

In my estimation, it’s revolutionary.

With that, there really isn’t much for me to say in print form, because the history to this unique type of drilling is spelled out in the video — how I arrived at the idea, how Todd Jacobson finally took the proverbial bull by the horns, and so forth.  There are even several versions of this goalie’s exercise routine included, as well as an in-line application.

– Dennis Chighisola

The Goaler’s Dance

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As always, Todd and I really appreciate your questions and feedback!

Predicting Hockey Stardom – Update

Good friend Fred G just challenged me with a pretty tough question.

In essence, he’s asked if I could put all the components that go into the making of a great hockey player into a pie chart, and then assess the various weights or percentages of the pie each of those would have.

Short answer:  wow, that would be almost impossible to do.

Longer answer:  I’ll always try to at least explain myself well for the sake of a hockey friend. 

– Dennis Chighisola

Predicting Hockey Stardom – Update

To begin, you may have noticed that I’ve taken a recent entry title — Predicting Hockey Stardom — and then added the “Update” to it.  My reasoning:  that post is very much related to this one.  In fact, as I thought more and more about Fred’s question, it struck me that nearly every entry topic on this site at least slightly touches upon the qualities that go into the making of a really good hockey player.

Although I can’t necessarily give these percentage weights, I’ve plotted hockey’s basic skills within my Building Blocks Approach to Skills.   The expanded chart can be found within that post, as well as a detailed explanation on how I feel about each skill’s place in our game, and how I believe these skills should be treated in the teaching process.  In general, however, I view skating as the base for both a hockey player’s offensive and defensive game.  Hey, one can’t either elude or catch an opponent without being quick and agile on the skates.  Of course, the other skills — including puckhandling, passing and receiving, and shooting are the offensive skills required to ultimately put the puck past an enemy goaltender.

Individual hockey-specific skills duly noted, there are also quite a few physical traits a good hockey player needs, with this list at least including strength, speed, quickness, agility, and hockey-specific conditioning.

Next, a player absolutely must have knowledge about the game, and he or she must eventually be able to read and react quickly and properly to ever changing game conditions.  Ours is a transition sport, meaning that puck possession changes frequently, necessitating that a player constantly switch his or her role — from offense to defense to offense and so on.  And, when I said that players must react properly, I’ve also implied that they know, understand and be able to apply both tried and true hockey playing principles along with the team’s planned strategies.  Attempting to over-emphasize a point here, please appreciate that reading and reacting require both the mental side of things, and the ability to physically carry out whatever needs to be done.

Now, I apologize that I can’t find a pretty interesting article I ran across just the other day, because it would have contributed further to my premise that there are a kzillion qualities required of a desirable hockey player.  The article was written by a former NHL-er, and it listed all the personal traits one should have in order to reach a high level.  These are the so-called intangibles  — like being a good teammate, being a good citizen, having a good work ethic, etc.  And, as I recall, that list of personality traits went well into the twenties.

Okay, so I’ve now amassed a pie chart that might be nearing a good forty or fifty slices, these including both physical and mental components.  With that, let me at least supply some of my own personal feelings when it comes to assigning importance to each…

In a perfect world, I would like young hockey players to be placed on a timetable that’s aimed at having them ready far down the road.  In other words, with everything geared towards early development, I wouldn’t worry about having young ones totally ready until they are about to enter high school.  In other words, I’d have a completely different pie chart for youngsters.  Of course, youth hockey circles are far from a perfect world, which means that some development may be lost as parents and coaches care as much about their kids looking good and winning games.

I’ll next call upon that old football expression which implies that, “On any given Sunday…”  My twist on that would be, “On any give day, one player may look a whole lot more impressive than others.”  In other words, players can do everything correctly over several years, but a lesser player might just do everything right on the day important people are watching.

In most honest opinion, “the total package” usually matters far more than any checklist we might devise.  In other words, a given player might have certain strengths and certain shortcomings, but his “total package” has him lead the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in scoring.  Yet another youngster may have his own combination of strengths and weaknesses that still allow him to be the best rated defenseman in all of US high school hockey.  So, if you get my drift, this very point suggests that, it probably doesn’t make sense for us to try to place more or less significance on any one area of the game.   It is, after all, the “total package” that determines if a player is effective or not.

Then, as I’ve written more than a few times within this site, ” We coaches and scouts (including yours truly) can be dreamers.”  And what I’m getting at here is that we can be looking at certain players more from a perspective of “potential” than how they actually compare to others.  Said yet another way, we might discount already polished players in favor of the “raw-boned” type who “projects” to be far better than the rest someday down the road.

With all that, I might offer to Fred and all my other member friends that, many scouts and high level coaches speak with slightly forked tongues when they state in public the kinds of skills they’re looking for.  Oh, for sure, they’re going to tell everyone within ear-shot that they like to see great skaters, whatever.  The fact of the matter is, they very frequently select players for drastically different reasons, and they are as often wrong about their choices as they are right.

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PS:  I felt it necessary to say all I have here, mainly because of the very last few paragraphs — in that final decisions on players don’t always (if ever) make sense, or fit some predetermined checklist.

At the same time — because I know I’m frequently responsible for guiding the fate of my own students and players, I do follow something akin to a checklist.  It begins with my bringing players through the aforementioned Building Blocks Approach to Skills.

As players mature, I’ll then address age-specific physical traits like speed, strength, agility, conditioning and more.

Along the way, I also try to instill in them a firm knowledge of the tried and true playing principles, while at the same time encouraging the kind of character any future coach would appreciate.

Predicting Hockey Stardom

My Twitter friend Joe C (who goes by @Emptynet62) sent me a link this morning to a video that highlights something we’ve all probably seen countless times.

I took the link Joe provided, sat back and watched, then found my mind racing with lots of random thoughts.  Perhaps, though, you should watch the same video before I get into all that.

– Dennis Chighisola

Predicting Hockey Stardom

To begin, my feeling is that the cute little guy featured in that piece is awesome.  And I mean that in many ways — from his poise on camera to the way he seemingly handles himself on the ice.

I also want to reaffirm something you should have caught me saying over and over within these pages, in that a certain “mentality” is required in order for a player to be a dangerous offensive threat.  The move he made in that video more than hints at this little guy having that kind of mindset.  But so are there a number of other cues I gathered from his brief interview.

The dad also hinted at this in his mention of a backyard rink.  Ya, that’s the kind of atmosphere where creativity is fostered.  You know what I mean — where a kid can just fiddle and fiddle and fiddle with a puck.

All those established, I now feel the need to switch about 180-degrees in order to deal with that “Predicting Hockey Stardom” issue.  Ya, predicting…

Well, would you believe that NHL clubs aren’t thrilled with having to make decisions on teenage players?  That only came about after Wayne Gretzky’s representatives began legal wranglings when he was a teen, these basically suggesting the NHL was depriving the soon to be Great One from making a living by not considering younger players than they had been drafting.  My point:  National Hockey League teams would much rather make their decisions based on far more data, and the amount of data increases greatly with each year they get to see and evaluate a player.  Said yet another way, practically anyone could better judge a player’s pro readiness at age 20 or 21, rather than at 18-years of age.

I’ve mixed plenty with NHL scouts through the years.  And, while most I’ve met have been pretty savvy guys, I know that they know their evaluations are not part of an exact science.  Anything but, since there are as many player intangibles to be guessed at as there are seeming obvious physical qualities.

And that brings me back to 9-year old Oliver, who isn’t 21, 20, or even 18-years of age.  Just how many things can change for that young man in the next 9-years or so?  Ha, trying to list them here just might blow this site’s server.

Just on the physical side, injury or illness could shortcut his progression, and so could his fortunes change depending on whether he matures to be 5′ 3″ or 6′ 5″.  So could the speed of his movements ultimately help or hamper the boy’s worthiness to play pro.

As for those so-called intangibles, let me at least mention a few…  Probably Number One on that list would be Oliver’s eventual coachability.  And I think a very close second will be his willingness to work (listen to my short audio, “A Lot Of Things Change As A Player Gets Older“, for more on this).  And, slightly related to the previous point, I’ll suggest that kids often do change their priorities as they get older — think cars, girls, jobs.

A given class of future recruits changes from year to year also.  In other words, while someone may have had young Oliver at the top of their list last year, a kid named Walter from Alaska might claim that spot now, and a young Russian boy named Igor could grab it the next.

Summing up this part — while that has to seem like a lot of negatives, I’ll suggest that that isn’t my intent.  All I’ve attempted to do is be a little realistic.  And I’m trying to just point out the near futility in trying to project talent too many years in advance.

That out of the way, though, let me suggest that Oliver has several things working in his favor.

As I mentioned earlier, he seems to have the right mentality.  And this, in turn, tends to bring many successes, which should only encourage him to work all the more (in other words, it snowballs — from a want to work to successes to a want to work more, etc).

Oliver’s dad — if he’s not overbearing, also seems a huge asset.  Of course, some might think his college playing experiences may help, while I’m not so sure about that.  However, I suspect the dad’s development within the Swedish hockey system may help him be a little bit more creative in comparison to a lot of North American hockey dads.

Then, of course, there’s that backyard rink.  Ya, I love that idea, and I count it as a biggie in Oliver’s favor.

 

A New Hockey Coaches’ Forum

As many of you know, I released my new hockey coaching manual several weeks ago, and along with that came a pair of bonuses.

What I hope proves to be an awesome supplement to the manual is an mp3 audio recording which shares lots of real-life experiences I’ve had over 40-years of dealing with young hockey players, their parents and their coaches.

In addition, I also created a Hockey Coaches’ Forum where manual owners and I might discuss problems, suggest ideas, and so forth.  In other words, while the original manual may be carved in stone, our experiences as coaches can continue to grow with every forum entry.

I’m writing today to let everyone know that the Hockey Coaches’ Forum is out there in cyber space for the world to see.  So anyone can look over our shoulders as the forum grows.  (Would it help to have a manual of your own?  Of course.  But, it’s not absolutely necessary for you to discover some new ideas.)

To date, I’ve added a few entries, mainly because my two next year’s teams have already begun working out.  I’ll continue to do that as I make more observations about my teams that seem to fit a manual owner’s needs.  (Oh, and I’m also into that stuff NOW because this is the time of year when wise coaches get a jump on all their future opponents!)

So, have a look, and let me know what you think.  I’m always seeking for ideas.

If you’d like to know more about that manual, just click the photo above.

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