What a Ten Week Youth Ice Hockey Clinic on Safety, Skills, and Scrimmaging Might Look Like

The idea we are developing is a 10-12 week clinic that blends safety and skill training together. Every skill that is taught will focus on improving the youth player's hockey abilities while teaching them indirectly and directly about safety. What exactly does that mean? By using USA Heads Up Hockey drills, along with additional behavioral skills that incorporate vision, position, and mental execution with the core hockey skills taught by experienced coaches... our clinic will help a youth player better protect themselves on the ice.

Many hockey drills only focus on the core hockey skill. For instance stick handling might be taught using cones that are draped through the offensive zone and neutral zone. This is typically done just for spacing reasons and because the focus of the drill is only on controlling the puck with the stick. Coaches my yell to keep your head up while the player is instructed to weave through the cones up and down the ice. This is effective in teaching the core skill but not effective in teaching the player how to make mental decisions during a game.

We are developing a safety and skills clinic that would teach the player how not only to stick handle and mange the puck but also teach them when to dump it, pass it, or even ice it. Each part of the ice requires the player to think about what they should do with the puck. Here are some questions that will mentally prepare the youth player?

How many opposing players are in front of me?
Should I bounce the puck off the boards and try and pick it back up in the neutral zone?
Should I pass across ice?
Have I crossed the center line and can dump and chase?
Should I just softly clear the puck out of our zone?
Do I have room to skate it out?

The above questions can only be answered through practice. Practice needs to teach the player both the core skill and the mental skills (pass or dump) and/or behavioral skill (head up).

If a player isn't thinking about and addressing these questions before the puck is on their stick, they will be more at risk of getting checked by choosing the wrong option. If they have to think versus react, then they will be slower and more at risk in a game. Protection is about thinking and making decisions.

A better method is to incorporate the use of blue lines and center lines (neutral zone) as they might be used in a game. No player should stick handle the puck out of their zone, through the neutral zone, and into their offensive zone. That is what the above drill teaches indirectly. Skating the puck out like this, is a recipe for getting hit and losing the puck. Both bad hockey plays.

The modified cone drill would have a player stick handle through cones on one end of the ice. When they approach the blue line, the will make a decision to pass to the opposite side of the neutral zone or pass it off the boards over the blue line. They would then pick up another puck as if they picked it up in the neutral zone or had open space. Once they cross the center line they would have to decide to dump the puck in hard for a dump and chase or pass it. They would continue into the offensive zone picking up another puck and practice stick handling.

The addition of choices forces the player to look up and make decisions they will have to make in a game. This is an optimal way to teach a player to think and behave during a practice. It is much better then just having a player skate up and down the ice stick handling the length of the ice. If they practice it during a clinic then they will use it in a game.