Are we coaching our youth hockey athletes correctly?

Working as a hockey coach for many years and being a player myself throughout my life has taught me many lessons – both on and off the ice. For a few months I’ve been thinking about the current “coaching” system of youth hockey on the ice.From the first time that a youngster can skate, he or she plays the same game of hockey that professionals play: structured, 5 on 5, whistles, face-offs, and penalties. First I’d like to say that these are all important elements of the game and should be learned. However, are they important elements of the game for children? Children’s hockey games don’t involve much puck handling; they involve much more skating towards the puck, then touching it, and then either throwing it away or shooting it. Then the cycle starts over. In a 40-minute scrimmage, the average atom or squirt player gets an average of ten minutes of ice time and during this time, the young player handles the puck less than ten times. Add to that the time spent traveling to and from the ice rink, getting dressed, undressed, and then cleaning up after getting home, and the time it took to get those ten minutes of ice-time and 15 seconds of puck time totals 3 hours! (It’s even worse with out-of-state tournaments and games!)At the youth level the most important aspect of hockey is to develop the basic fundamentals: skating, shooting, passing, and – in some countries/leagues – body checking. It’s a great task, one that requires many hours, days, months, and years of dedicated practice. Body awareness, agility, and technique all need to be addressed in a young player. So why is it that during this important development time, our youth hockey programs provide such an inefficient opportunity for our young children to develop their skills? I don’t know the amount of time one needs to practice stick-handling in order to  perform the task above average, but I’m sure it is well over 15 seconds! Those three hours that are used by the player (and by the parents) to get those 15 seconds’ worth of stick handling during a regular game can be used by the player to (for example) stick handle for an hour – 15 minutes, 4 times, while in his or her garage! Or this can be done during a well-structured practice!I suggest that the youth players have more practice instead of game time. The “fun” aspect, however, should not be forgotten – since these are kids we are talking about – kids who like to have fun on top of everything else. It’s in their nature to do so. So perhaps a youth practice should end with 10 minutes of in-zone scrimmage time more often than not. This way the players are more compact and will get to:

1. Handle the puck more often
2. Come into contact with other players more often, and will have to avoid others if the player is puck-carryin
3. Get more ice-time

My train of thought is simple: give young (atoms, mites, squirts) hockey players more of what they need most – the basic foundation of hockey and play less professional-style hockey games. They will always have time to play pro-style games in the future, but if they learn the foundational skills quicker, they will be able to enjoy themselves more faster. A common analogy I like to use is: if a boy is going to become a business leader in his future career, he doesn’t start out his childhood by wearing a suit and tie to school.Let me know what you think in the comments,Alex