Our First "Mighty Mite" Hockey Practice

Over the coming months (and seasons) I’m hoping to share with members what I’m doing in my various Team NEHI programs.  And a lot of the time I’ll also want to let you in on my thinking as I prepare for each of those.  Let’s face it, you’re not going to get a real handle on things if I just tell you, “Do this!”  Naw, I think I’d serve you best by letting you know the whys and the wherefores of a given practice.

As an aside here, I’m chuckling to myself as I think about my latest undertaking.  I mean, I had a number of minor league pro coaching and GM interviews, I head coached in high school and college, and for about the past decade I’ve run teams for junior and senior high school players.  But, don’t you know, I just couldn’t resist an invitation to coach a team of beginners from my Learn-to-skate/Learn-to-play clinics.  Ya, “Mighty Mites” we’ve dubbed them, ranging in ages from 4- to 8-years old.  And, don’t you know, I’m already loving it!

Anyway, I wrote earlier about our first get-together (Teaching the Beginner Hockey Player) , or our so-called tryout.  But the following will describe our first real practice, as well as my thinking behind each drill.  (Oh, and click on the thumbnail photos below for a brief video showing a given drill in progress.)

– Dennis Chighisola

Our First “Mighty Mite” Hockey Practice

As I’ve said countless times within these pages, “It’s important to know where one is!”  And by that I mean that we coaches — AND PARENTS — have to adjust everything we do according to the ages and experience levels of our players.  In my case, for example, the game changes drastically from my college-playing grandson to my high school guys to my junior high kids and now to my “babies”.  And so do the challenges they each face.

1- I did a little brainstorming based on that thinking, and my wife actually helped me arrive at the first drill (as well as some others)…  She’s raised two players to pretty high levels, so she knew what she was talking about when she discovered I was headed to an instructional level practice.  “Oh, that’s the funnest age!” she beamed, adding that, “I love it when they all fall down!”  (Grrrrrrrr…  Not my little Weebles!  As a matter of fact, take a look at the video below — just click on the photo — to see that my kids actually learned to stop in our clinic, and I can call them together without anyone getting hurt!)  Of course, she was still right — on both counts.  So I decided to start things with a basic body-checking drill that had the kids bumping the boards with their shoulders, and a little later bumping a partner’s shoulder.  The idea is for the kids to gain a sense of what it takes to be stable, and what it takes to resist the occasional bump during game action.  And, make no mistake about it:  although body-checking isn’t allowed in instructional hockey, collisions take place in absolutely every level of hockey.

2- Hockey skating, in general, is a lot like playing one against one tag.  So we did that in pairs, sending several sets of twos at a time into an end zone.  We limited their time on these to about 8- or 10-seconds.  (Sorry, no video of this drill.)

3- Next, I dumped a bag full of weighted pucks for the kids to experiment with.  First, I had pairs passing those heavy things as far as they could, and I also suggested they try spinning the pucks so they’d stay flat on rough ice.  The concept is explained more in Passing Basics in Hockey , but what I was trying to do is give my kids a sense of what it took to get a firm grip on the puck and to generate decent power through their sticks.  (Really, the idea is much like the boards bumping drill, in that I wanted my kids to search for their strength.)

4- I then had my youngsters try to fire those weighted pucks off the side boards.  Standing only about 6′ off, I asked if they could make the loud booming noise demonstrated by a few of us coaches.

5- From there we switched to the blue, lightweight pucks used by all younger USA Hockey teams.  Now, to me puckhandling is about experimentation.  So I gave the kids a brief demonstration of side-to-side dribbling and then sent them on their way around our half of the rink.

6- Having already said that skating in the little guys’ and gals’ game is a lot like playing tag, I next went to games of pairs keepaway.  Yes, that’s basically what the puckhandling game will be like for them — trying to keep that biscuit away from their opponents.  So we sent the kids into a zone again in twos, this time having each player attempt to keep the puck away from his partner for as long as possible.  (Click on the thumbnail to see a brief video.)

As an aside…  When I ultimately intend to put together a number of skill drills, I begin by teaching each segment separately (usually starting with the end skill, then working backwards).  I did that in the following series of drills that begin with us beating a defender of some sort and end with us attacking the goal.  But, let me explain that further…

7- The end result of many later attack drills was going to be for our kids to shoot on a simulated goalie.  In this case, I borrowed a mini-net from the rink to place (backwards) inside the larger net (see the photo to the right).  We gathered around the goal for a time, as I explained the difference between hitting the goaler — and making him look good, or hitting an opening to get the goal (see Creating the Early Goal-scorer for great help in this area).  And, as you can hear (by clicking on the following thumbnail), I’d asked the coaches to make a REALLY big deal out of whether a kid scored or not.  After all, that’s what it will be like in a game.  S0, why not make things exciting right here in the practices?

8- We then took the puckhandling to a typical pylon course, except that I used large foam dots to represent what my kids hear me refer to as “the bad guys” (LOL).  If you might notice (click on the thumbnail to see a brief video), and thanks to our weekly Learn-to clinic, my little ones are starting to get the hang of using both sides of their sticks as they do this one.

9- Now, I had in mind using some different training devices in place of rival defenders.  But I had to first show the kids what those devices represented.  So (as shown in the thumbnail and the next video) a coach stood stationary to act as an “open triangle” the kids could attack.  This is a typical Mite level play, as the attacker tosses the puck through the defender’s legs and then retrieves it on the other side.  You might also hear us coaches correcting the kids on the forcefulness of their passes, since this play calls for just a soft tap ahead so the puck ends-up sitting right where the attacker needs it to be.

10-  I eventually brought a metal device out (see the thumbnail below) and placed it in front of a coach, this so the kids could appreciate that the device’s legs would now simulate those of the coach.  In this way, the coaches were freed to do what they do best:  coach.

As another aside…  At one point I teased a very experienced helper about (not) stationing himself at the front of a line.  My point in that brief exchange was that he was far more valuable getting out and among the players.  And, while I had only a little luck with teaching these really young ones my way of dealing with lines, I suggested to each that, “A coach won’t tell you when to go for now on.  Instead, take your turn when the player in front of you gets to such-and-such an area.”  Oh, they’ll get this over time.  And when they do, our practices will run all the better.

11- Ultimately we put things together, having the kids beat a given obstacle, then move-on to score against the simulated goaltender (click on the photo to see a video).

12- The practice ended with pairs of players racing for a loose puck, with the winner scurrying to the net for a shot on-goal.  This also simulates what happens in the little one’s game, in that races to loose pucks determine a lot, as does scoring under at least a little pressure.  (Click on the photo to see a brief video.)

Now, I’m betting a lot of readers are going to be a little surprised at how many drills I fit-in during an hour of ice-time, or how much we got accomplished with those little rascals.  That’s my (our) job, though, to get as much accomplished as possible on a kzillion dollars worth of ice-time!

Oh, and you might also be surprised to see (or hear) how animated I am with the kids.  Well, that too I think is super important to my work.

– Dennis Chighisola

Special thanks to Andy L. for taking the videos! 

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