Creating Coaching Cues

After spending a good part of the other night training players up in The MOTION Lab, Todd Jacobson and I strolled out to the parking lot, doing what we so often do, talking the game and exchanging coaching ideas.

I found it interesting on this night that Todd and I both seem to use a similar technique when communicating with our players.  Not so surprisingly, we totally agreed on the fact that players don’t have time to process lots of information while they’re attempting to read and react in a frantically played game.  But, what we both do is use very short — probably one or two syllable words — to slightly guide our players.

The way I usually explain it is that I’ll call-out a short, unmistakable word to connect with what really is a 10-minute story.  I truly mean that.

What comes to mind immediately are a few of my “Rules for winners”.  These so-called rules involve happenings that I feel frequently influence a game’s outcome.  (I’m actually planning on giving these away sometime soon as a downloadable Gift.)

For example, one of these has to do with how quickly (or how slowly) one of my players moves toward an enemy puckcarrier.  I can go into all sorts of examples about winning or losing these 1 on 1 battles, and I go to such lengths to really drive home my point.  In the end, however, I’ll get to the main idea, suggesting to my kids that it’s “quick pressure” that makes a rival puckcarrier rush his or her play — quite often mishandling the puck, or making a bad pass.

That’s what I meant when I said my cues often refer to a 10-minute (or probably longer) story (or stories).  For, as you can imagine, my yelling “Pressure!  Pressure!  Pressure!” during the game action ultimately has a ton of meaning.

Not that I (or Todd) call-out a lot of directions during a game.  But, we do use a few cues that help us communicate pretty well with our players.