Jack Blatherwick
Why scrimmages are better for development than games
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- Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 23:31
By Jack Blatherwick
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
I felt like that guy who isolates his camera on Alex Ovechkin or Sid Crosby, only mine was fixed on the weakest player in the game. In warmup, I carefully selected the PeeWee player with the poorest skills. This was easy; the skills kinda looked like mine. His team warmed up for a really “huge game,” one of hundreds of “huge games” that weekend, all under the same roof. Of course, there would be huge games on any weekend of the season, but this one – well, it was special, because that’s how it was advertised. Really big. Fortunately, buying a senior ticket allowed me to attend this mega-event for a more reasonable admission fee than parents were paying, the same parents who buy tickets to next week’s tournament, last week’s and every week. Come to think of it, the same parents pay the team participation fee for the tournament; and of course, pay a big chunk at the start of the season to enter into this bargain. I videotaped the weakest player on the ice, because we rarely see what he does in a game; we’re busy watching players with the puck. No doubt, the top players improve in games: big games, huge games and mega-games. Not only do they have the instincts, aggressiveness and speed to get to the puck quicker, they have superior skills and poise that allow them to control it longer. And they try fun things with the puck once they get it. They enjoy a longer leash from the coaches to try creative plays, because if they fail, their leash is not shortened. So, don’t think the parents of elite players are going to vote for fewer games in a season. Nor am I writing to vote for fewer games. This is about the way games are conducted. Star players have more fun with the puck and less reason to fear failure. These are critical elements in development, because it increases their passion for hockey, and passion is the most important factor. Nothing else is close. Scouts rate potential based on skills, rink sense, toughness, speed, size, etc. Yet because it’s difficult to measure passion from the bleachers, scouts have to draft dozens of players to get one or two who eventually have an impact in NHL games. The player I videotaped is not likely to become passionate about hockey. He got to the puck only seven times that game, and each time he just batted it toward the offensive end of the rink. Total time of possession for all seven touches: about one second. No shots. No cool moves to beat an opponent. No defensive wins. His greatest reward was a pat on the back for getting off the ice quickly, so the good guys could take over. No wonder he’s thinking about playing the trombone next winter. Adults clearly want the best for their kids, but to make competition more grandiose is a step in the wrong direction. As each game becomes a big-time event, it ensures that weaker players will try fewer things with the puck. No one wants to be the goat in ‘huge games.’ Therefore, if puck skills are inferior, “I’m going to try the simplest thing I can to avoid screwing up.” Ideally, we’d like every player to try new things; experiment, create; raise the bar; control the puck long enough to find a good play. Otherwise, competition is counterproductive. The best way to help more players improve, not just star players, is to scrimmage more. Turn the scoreboard off, and stop promoting competition as a big event. Eliminate referees for some scrimmages and reduce unnecessary faceoffs; teach goalies to make plays rather than freeze the puck, thereby keeping things moving and increasing ice time. By scrimmaging this way, intrinsic factors are accentuated: creative playmaking, winning smaller competitive battles, skating with the puck, shooting, defending, deking, making deceptive passes, controlling the puck. In our present format with so many official games, many of these intrinsic rewards are reserved for the top few. Weaker players have to settle for extrinsic rewards like team trophies. Of all team sports, hockey is the most intrinsically fun. Bells and whistles, trophies, banners, tournaments and cheers are unnecessary. Of course, if players are asked, they’d say this adds to the fun, because they don’t know it can be done another way. Besides, it really is fun to stay in a motel and crash around the pool while parents are partying. But this format of official games and big-time tournaments develops only a few players; it increases the cost dramatically; it intimidates most players from trying creative plays; and it reduces ice time and puck possession; and therefore, it reduces passion. Without passion there is no development. Visit Jack’s website at www.overspeed.info.
More fun and development? Stop the big-time production
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- Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 23:31
Part 1: Smaller teams ... a no-brainer
By Jack Blatherwick Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
If youth hockey is truly about fun and development, then the answer is simple: eliminate weekend tournaments for profit, reduce the size of teams, eliminate unnecessary whistles, scrimmage more without scoreboards, and practice skating and stick skills off-ice. However, simple answers on paper don’t equate to simple solutions, because adults are determined to make a grand production of every youth hockey game.
Part 1 of a three-part series: smaller teams ... a no-brainer! With 10 skaters and a goalie, each player gets more ice time, of course. But weaker players, especially, will play in crucial situations when previously the coach shortened the bench, sending the unmistakable message that you must already be a good player at 10 years old to play when the chips are on the line.
Games will be more of a conditioning challenge; kids might even come home tired. Wow, imagine that. In the present format, fatigue is from psychological tension, not physical exertion.
Hockey games do not fulfill two of the many important objectives of youth sports: to improve cardiovascular fitness and reduce America’s epidemic of obesity and type II diabetes. A youth hockey game (9-10 minutes of competition for an average player) could hardly be called a “workout.”
Consider these facts: in a game scheduled for a 60-minute rental period, the puck is in play less than half the time ... about 28 minutes! With 15 players on a team, the average playing time is 9.3 minutes. If lucky, the weaker players might get one shot a game, bat the puck (not control it ) seven times and get off the ice quickly each shift, before they screw up. How can we expect improvement, passion or fun?
The best players in the NHL are the smartest players. They’ve learned when to hustle and when to coast. They explode at just the right moment; that’s why they’re the best.
Ben Smith, coach of three U.S. women’s Olympic teams and assistant on two men’s teams, believes that with so many players on youth teams, we are inadvertently teaching ‘buzz-bomb hockey.’ Players ‘hustle’ up and down the ice without thinking. If we had 10 players, they’d have to think in order to conserve energy, not just skating hard with no purpose.
USA and Minnesota Hockey can conduct the best clinics possible to help coaches do a better job in practice, and some day these clinics might make a difference. But increasing the competitive playing time will immediately help everyone improve.
Hold on a second! In bad economic times, how do we accomplish both things: increase ice time and reduce youth teams to 10 skaters and one goaltender? First, every practice will include two teams. Twenty skaters and two goalies ... a perfect number for practices.
Next, eliminate expensive trips and tournaments. (This might cut in too much on parental fun, of course). Reduce the number of “official big-time” games that require two or three refs.
Scrimmage more without scoreboards and unnecessary whistles, such as the ‘can’t-tag-up’ offsides whistle, batting the puck with the body or hand, and even whistles for icing. Add dryland practice for skating and stick skills. Get more bang for the buck when we rent an hour of ice.
Keep the puck out of the hands of referees. For development and fun, the puck likes to be moving around the ice from stick to stick, doing all kinds of kewl things.
Stop traveling all over the place to compete, creating family schedules built around a 10-year-old hockey player’s day. Hockey is intrinsically fun and productive without bells, whistles and hour-long trips to another suburb or town.
With only 10 players and a goalie on the roster, two local teams of equal ability can scrimmage more often. I promise ... kids will get better, even though the ride to the rink is five minutes instead of an hour.
The fun of hockey is intrinsic. Sticks, pucks, skates, dekes, shots to the top shelf, awesome saves, creative plays, 1-on-1 competition, good bodychecks ... that’s what elicits passion and improvement. It’s hockey that’s so great, not tournament trophies.
But more on that later.
Visit Jack’s website at www.overspeed.info.
Ducks practicing in the ‘Soviet comfort zone’
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- Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 23:31
By Jack Blatherwick
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
The University of Oregon Ducks football team, led by head coach Chip Kelly, is making the most constructive contribution to team sports in decades. Do not miss this lesson. Their hurry-up offense is devastating to opponents, because the practice strategy fits the game plan, ensuring that opponents cannot stay in the ‘Ducks Comfort Zone’ for four quarters. Coach Kelly and his strength-conditioning coach, Jim Radcliffe, are demonstrating that if you plan to compete at backbreaking speed, you better train at that pace for entire practices. The failed tradition of pushing athletes through a series of ‘wind sprints’ that last too long and have inadequate rest intervals accomplishes nothing constructive. It reinforces habits of jogging rather than sprinting, poor skills rather than quality performance, sloppy patterns rather than sharp cuts and stiff knees rather than good skating technique – if it is a hockey team. This was the philosophy of the Soviet teams that dominated international hockey for 40 years. ‘OverSpeed Practice,’ meant executing all skills at an uncomfortably fast pace to develop a unique ‘Soviet Comfort Zone.’ Opponents will be uncomfortable at best … and eventually unable to keep up. This was also the basis of Herb Brooks’ conditioning plan for the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. No doubt, as the movie Miracle shows, when Brooks was frustrated and thought the team needed a lesson in discipline, he resorted to the endless stops-and-starts that players called “Herbies.” However, this was not his conditioning philosophy for the training season. Brooks knew from playing against the Soviets himself that no team had a chance unless they could match their physiological preparation. This meant all skills and read-react decisions would be practiced at ‘OverSpeed.’ To coaches of individual sports like track or swimming, this has always been obvious: high speed interval training is necessary for high speed competition. But coaches in team sports have held stubbornly onto traditions that are counterproductive, using long, slow wind sprints that form habits of slowness under the pseudonym of ‘conditioning.’ By winning with this creative formula, Ducks football could change the conditioning philosophies of many more coaches than have been reached by science or logic. The hurry-up offense is cool, to be sure, but the training plan that supports it is where the creative genius lies. Coaches can study the Ducks’ philosophy in a recent New York Times article. Go to www.Overspeed.info and look for the Oregon link to a PDF file. Is this really that important? Well, consider the thousands of college football, basketball and hockey teams in the country, and there is only one practicing in such a way that their training alone sets them apart from everyone else. Just ask Ducks’ opponents. They are experiencing the same discomfort that hockey teams felt playing the Soviets. The very purpose of a conditioning program is to make your opponents feel as uncomfortable as your own team did when they began practicing at OverSpeed.
Interdependence is not an obvious lesson for a star player or a winning team…and the talking heads aren’t helping
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- Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 23:31
By Jack Blatherwick
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
Don’t bet the ranch on the most talented team in December — high school or NHL. A few years ago, every one was raving about a certain high school hockey team that had just waltzed through the holiday tournament without a close game. After all, it was undefeated and loaded with college-bound stars. Herb Brooks had read about the talent, and after seeing them win easily against a very good opponent, Brooks responded, “This team will need to develop synergy before it can get to the state tournament. Right now they’re a bunch of highly talented individuals, and the media attention isn’t helping.” They had just scored a bunch of individual highlight goals that brought even more hype, but Brooks wasn’t buying it. “Right now 1+1+1 just adds up to 3,” he warned. “They need more trust, more interdependence. They don’t move without the puck, because they’re not sure they’ll get the pass if they get open. No trust. Too many stars, too much reliance on the goaltender and defensemen in their own end.” Brooks was on a roll. He had been waiting to see them play, and his coaching instincts were building as he explained how their greatest assets could eventually become their weaknesses. “Maybe they have too much talent. They put sticks where their bodies should be – looking for breakaways instead of playing through bodies so a teammate can start the breakout. Teams don’t win in the playoffs until the most talented players become the hardest workers.” In late February, after a remarkable season, the team scored two individual highlight goals in the section semifinals and lost 4-2. Synergy was still missing; the whole had not become greater than the sum of the parts. It happens every year; teams that win big throughout the regular season on individual skills, often lose in the playoffs, because they haven’t learned hard lessons. Watch the NHL closely, because the most talented players find it easier to score in-season than when team defense becomes a life-and-death matter in the playoffs. To win in the playoffs, everyone has to be committed to team defense and using each other to create offense. Championships are built on support, trust, interdependence, and work ethic, but you won’t hear those words on TV. It’s all about goals, assists, touchdowns, field goals, three-pointers and individual records. After all, it’s the ignorant mission of the talking heads to individualize team sports. “Synergy is the first and last job of a winning coach,” Brooks added, “but when you’re winning all the time, it can be a tough sell. The need for interdependence isn’t obvious to a player who has a lot of success, and the public fixation on individual accomplishments makes the coach’s job more difficult.” In other words, to be the top rated team – the team with the most talent in any sport – is a long, hard step from being the eventual champion. Visit Jack’s website at www.overspeed.info.
Core synergy
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- Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 23:31
By Jack Blatherwick
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
Training the core of the body – back, hip and abdominal muscles that support the spine – has become a major part of conditioning programs. Well-intentioned advisors have been very creative in finding ways to isolate these muscles, but like all strength training, the goal should not be to isolate, but to integrate them with the muscles that move arms and legs in athletic ways. There are three goals in training of athletes: (1) to improve athletic performance; (2) to prevent injuries; and (3) to rehabilitate athletes who are recovering from injuries. Only in the third case is isolation of core muscles the best approach for well-trained athletes, only when ballistic movement is not yet allowed. Dr. Stuart McGill is professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and a world-renowned expert on this subject. Every coach and fitness instructor should be familiar with his thoughts – not that he, or anyone is 100 percent right – but because he knows more about stress on the spine than the rest of us. McGill believes that many of the isolation exercises commonly used for core strength might actually CAUSE back injuries, not prevent them. This includes exercises where the back is rounded, rather than in a natural position (Highly recommended article: www.backfitpro.com/pdf/selecting_back_exercises.pdf). When standing upright, a normal, healthy spine has a slightly forward or concave curvature in the lower back, called a lordotic curvature. This is the safest and strongest position for all exercises, especially those using heavy resistance. Rounding it as we do when we flex the trunk forward for crunches or sit-ups is, in McGill’s opinion, a movement we should avoid. Certainly allowing the back to become rounded during heavy lifting is contraindicated, as in bad technique for squats, dead lifts or Olympic lifts – or just picking up an object from the floor. His advice to athletes is to incorporate core muscles into other movements, creating synergy between core muscles and those that move limbs. Research has shown that core muscles are the first ones recruited when we initiate any movement of the limbs, meaning that every athletic movement is also a core exercise. The degree to which core muscles are recruited depends on the severity or explosiveness of the task and the natural reflexes inherent in the movement. For example, while skating – just like walking, running and crawling – our arms naturally oppose the legs. Therefore, when we push to the side (abduct the hip) at high skating speeds, it is a natural reflex (and uses physics efficiently) to allow the arm to swing in the opposite direction of the leg. Note: sprinters extend their legs almost straight backward at the hip, so their most efficient arm movement is forward and back, not across their body. This is not the case for skating, even though some instructors have insisted that skaters use the same arm motion as sprinters. When we stickhandle while skating, we must use the arms independently of the legs. This amounts to fighting reflexes and physics; and therefore requires greater recruitment of core muscles to stabilize the trunk while the large gluteal muscles of the buttocks extend and abduct the leg at the hip. Therefore, a good dryland training program should include exercises where the arms are dissociated from the legs. This might be sprinting or jumping while stickhandling, or using the slide board while stickhandling or catching and throwing a medicine ball. To see coach Anatoli Tarasov leading some extreme training of his Soviet hockey team — movements that are dangerous, but highly productive for those who survive — go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVaZdZnTytY&feature=related. This video gives you some idea why these were the best conditioned teams to ever play the game – also, why the athletes who fell by the wayside probably ended up walking with canes the rest of their lives. Visit Jack’s website at www.overspeed.info.
