Hockey Smarts = Ice Time!

As many of you might know by now, I run 2-teams under the New England Hockey Institute banner.  The high school guys are with me from late-May until Thanksgiving (when the local school teams begin), and my junior high school aged kids are with me for almost 11-months.

For sure, I do a lot for my players’ when it comes to their skills and playing smarts, but I also do quite a bit to improve their psyche.  And it’s the latter — trying to help my kids carry themselves and act like true athletes — that I’d like to comment on here.  In particular, I’d like to share with you something I frequently try to convince my older guys about…

You see, this is something I always felt from my experiences as a long-time high school and then college head coach, in that skills tend to get a player noticed — and they tend to help a kid make his or her team; thereafter, however, hockey smarts tend to get a player ice time.  Think along with me, if you will…

About all that’s really recognized at tryouts is whether a player fits — skill-wise.  All sorts of drills are conducted for this purpose, without there being much a coach can do to discover whether the players can think and skate, or play the game according to sound hockey principles.

Once his or her team is named, a coach goes about the next steps, which include filtering players towards their positions or rolls, and then teaching them his or her playing system.  And it’s at this time that hockey smarts (or a lack thereof) start to show.

As an aside…  Of course, a player’s skill capabilities enter into the amount of ice time he or she gets.  But, for the sake of this discussion, let’s envision that most team members are in the ballpark when it comes to skill oriented capabilities.

Actually, that process — of assessing and re-assessing each player’s ability to think the game or play the system — continues throughout a season.  In other words, make dumb plays with the puck in your own end, and you might expect to sit.  Forget your assignment on a face-off, and you might not hear your name called for a long, long time.

So again, if you can appreciate my point…  Great skills are sure to get a player noticed — and probably picked — during a difficult tryout process.  In a way though, a new process starts right after tryouts end, this one involving the battle for ice time.  And, while skills are still a factor in logging lots of ice, so are hockey smarts and an ability to execute the coach’s playing system.

Finally, I’ve come to believe that understanding the above is really a part of each player’s mentality.  And I also believe this mind set is best taught early — again, convincing him or her to build highlight reel skills, but at the same time realizing the need to be smart and adaptable (to whatever strategies and tactics a new coach might want to employ).