Putting A Hockey Plan Together - 4

Well, I stalled for as long as I could, trying to give members enough time to deal with the previous parts to this rather long series. Overall, it's been about preparing for the coming season, but more recently we've covered three parts so far in putting a hockey plan together.

As for this post, it's number four, and it kinda acts as a wrapup to all we've gone through over the past month-plus.

-- Dennis Chighisola

Putting A Hockey Plan Together - 4

It struck me recently, that it might be difficult for members to find all the entries I've posted these past two months. So, I've created a new category, where you'll henceforth find all the articles aimed at "Readying For A New Season". So, from now on you should be able to go up to the Special Topics section on the top line of any page, scroll down, and find that special category in the pull-down menu.

Okay, three posts have preceded this one, with the first, "Putting A Hockey Plan Together" roughly introducing all the components that go into my coaching notebook. From there I got a little more detailed, explaining a Season-long Plan in "Putting A Hockey Plan Together - 2", and then describing the way I like to divide a season into smaller Teaching Segments in "Putting A Hockey Plan Together - 3". With that, let's get into the way I like to plan each practice on a nightly basis throughout my season. Personally, I've always liked to create special little slips within which I can write in my night's hockey practice plan. (I've done these slips in different sizes, but the following is one I like to use so I can hide the slip in my warmup suit pocket.) As I mentioned previously, I know a lot of younger members might do this within a smartphone app, and that's okay...

As for me, I've often taken a blank piece of typing paper, and folded it twice -- such that it yields four sections or panels. That done, I'd glue in four blank Practice Plans so they look like the second picture below:

Just so members know, I've tried designing all this within a wordprocessing program, and it hasn't worked -- mainly because one loses too much space in the borders.

Once the master sheet is ready, I copy it enough times so that I eventually arrive at more than enough slips to cover all my practices for the coming season. (I used the same slips for my traditional practices, for my weekly on-ice skills sessions, and also for my weekly off-ice practices.)

As I've said so often over the years, I'm a long range looking guy. And, with that, I believe in doing as much work as necessary in the early going so that everything later tends to be far, far easier. That should be the case here, whereby I probably spent weeks in the proverbial bunker -- gathering all sorts of ideas for putting a hockey plan together, and then I've taken more pains to put together the likes of a Season-long Plan and my various Teaching Segments. In other words, it should consequently be fairly easy for me to draw from those two forms in order to put together a given night's practice plan. Then, taking it a step further, having a standardized Practice Plan makes it all the easier for me to fill in each of the blank spaces:

I'd like members to notice that timing a given practice is super-important to me (that's what the left column above is for). And, trust me, that I plan each drill to the minute, and then try to stay right on schedule. (This might end up being frustrating to me -- feeling a gun to my head, but my players usually love it that a practice runs in an upbeat manner, with drills changing very frequently.)

As you might imagine, that form guides me a bit, but it doesn't confine me much. I mean, it's mostly blank space for the times and drills, with a little extra space down below for extra notes. My way isn't the only way to design a practice. However, I have developed my own thoughts on a rough outline...

My practices begin with either the same warmups we do prior to a game, or another drill that lasts as long and requires as little supervision. The reason I say that is because the first few minutes of a practice are good for administering certain things -- like assessing who is present and who isn't, getting together with my assistants, readying some special gear, or making lineup changes (that might require switching color-coded practice jerseys).

Of course, the amount of time I devote specifically to individual skills depends of the age and level of my team. In other words, young kids might need specific drills aimed at teaching or improving their skating, puckhandling, passing and shooting, while I'll combine those skills within more advanced drills for my older guys.

Most of my practices also end with what I've come to call the "finishers", or conditioning drills aimed at helping my players leave the rest of what they have on the ice. My teams do plenty of fast paced drills during a practice, but I don't want to kill them early, have the lactic acid build too early, and prevent them from working at full speed the rest of the way.

The middle of my practices are usually themed. I mean, I will group the offensive drills to keep the players thinking in attack mode for a stretch, and then I'll group another batch of drills aimed at making my guys think defense. In between those two segments you might find me running my MP Drill Format for a few minutes. Another, shorter length of time will be spent on special situations -- like face-offs, powerplay and penalty-killing.

A few weeks ago, I provided a different kind of look at what I thought to be a solid practice outline. You might browse at that, in case it contains any other ideas.

Winding down here, let me suggest again the benefits to all the planning I've outlined here -- over the last few posts, and over the last two months. To be honest, I can't imagine a coach running effective nightly practices without it.

I must remind members of something Dave Dryden warned us about at a long ago coaching seminar, suggesting that we not run around "stamping out brushfires". In other words, for the most part, we should develop a plan and stick with it. Still, we do have to occasionally deal with the latest problem, if only for a few minutes. I get a lot of my ideas from the notes I take from our game bench.

Then, I wonder if anyone got a sick feeling thinking about how much we'd like to get done versus how little time we actually have with our kids. Aaaaaah, that's where off-ice practice comes in, whether it's outdoors, in a gym, on the runway mats, or even in the dressingroom. Hey, the more we get done off the ice, the more we can accomplish on it. Then, there's the challenge of knowing what to do next. Having encouraged coaches to work in pencil as they're putting a hockey plan together, I can tell members ahead of time that changes will be needed on each of the forms we've created. As I've said in previously entries, your kids will take to some things faster than you thought possible, while they'll also struggle with some areas of the game you didn't think they would. So, be ready to make changes to the plans. Trust me, that it's necessary with every team in the hockey world. Lastly, remember that I'm always here for you, and I look forward to helping members -- coaches to parents to adult players -- handle any problems or challenges that arise during the coming year.

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As much fun as this series has been, it'll also be fun and refreshing to get back to my usual way of posting. :)