As we look into building a clinic for between seasons, one of the challenges is defining what will be taught. Two words that struck me in a conversation were Awareness and Movement. I think these are the key words to define the mental aspects arena of youth ice hockey.
Awareness on the player's part to all things around them like; where their teammates are, where they are positionally, where the other team is, where the puck is going and the like.
A youth player should have a field of vision and awareness that protects them. They need to know and be taught a lot more then racing for the puck and going to the goal. Awareness has to be clearly taught. Youth player's pick up a lot of this over time but it can be enhanced, and more quickly achieved, with formal teaching by coaches and parents.
As the youth player waits to grow, the can practice and develop a strong mental awareness of the game. Their bodies will naturally mature, the mental game won't without instruction.
Movement is the other key and it might sound like it goes with moving the puck. True, the key is to move the puck up the ice. But the mental piece is involves the player understanding their movement on the ice and how to use it. How the anticipate, stop, start, crash, and go are built around mentally understanding the game and their positional role.
So the question left to us is... How to best teach this in a manner that is both fun and effective? The goal is to create better players and players that can better protect themselves on the ice.
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