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 roles, 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.

Yet another aside... At least once each year, one of the bull sessions I hold with my older guys involves a focus on the minor league team that feeds the hometown Boston Bruins. The NHL team's AHL affiliate is only down the street, in Providence, RI. So I know that most of my kids have seen plenty of P-Bruins games with their parents, or they've at least followed the progress of young, budding players who are just dying to get a call from the big club.

You might wonder, as my kids do, why some guys seem to excel on the minor league team, yet they don't get that call. And I'll suggest that it's usually because they lack the final polish or the trustworthiness to play at the next level. For sure, they have the potential -- and most likely the skills; that's why they're seen as prospects. But they don't yet have the mental skills to displace someone up above.

Finally, I've come to believe that understanding the above really has to be a part of each developing 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).