Kim McCullough

The Five-Player Rule in Hockey

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Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 23:31

By Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS

As a coach, it is always a privilege and a luxury to work with a team where every single player wants to be their best and is willing to do anything and everything in order to get to the next level. But we all know that working with this type of team of 15-20 highly motivated and dedicated players is an exception and not the rule.

I constantly get emails from parents, players and coaches, who are frustrated by the fact that not every member of their team is equally focused and driven to get to the next level of performance. The reality is there is a five-player rule in girls’ hockey.

On every team, there are usually five players who are really dedicated and driven to get to the next level. It’s not that the other players aren’t trying their hardest or giving their best. It’s just that they’re not quite as focused on getting to the elite level.

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Have Your Best Youth Hockey Tournament Ever

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Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 23:31

Have Your Best Tournament Ever

By Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS

The youth hockey tournament season is nearly upon us. There is no doubt that tournaments are great fun. You probably remember just as much about what happened off the ice as what happened on the ice. It's a terrific way for the team to bond and get some games in against opponents you don't face on a regular basis.

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The three hardest skills in hockey

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Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 23:31

By Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS

Every player has one thing they struggle with more than anything else on the ice. Same thing goes for each position on the ice. There are certain position-specific skills that are more challenging than others for goalies, defensemen and forwards. 

Over the past 20 years of playing, teaching and coaching the game, I’ve noticed that there seems to be ONE skill that is hardest for players in each of these three positions.

So here are the hardest things for goalies, defense and forwards to do. 

FOR GOALIES: 

Playing the puck

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a goalie coach. But with all the teams I’ve worked with and watched, it seems that many goalies struggle with playing the puck.  The issue seems to be a mixture of technical ability (not knowing how and when to play the puck effectively) and confidence (not wanting to “screw up” and fearing making a mistake that costs the team). 

Having your goaltender play the puck is a HUGE advantage in girls’ hockey.  This doesn’t mean that your goalie needs to be able to make a saucer pass to the far blueline (although that’s never a bad thing). Simply coming out of the crease to redirect a dump-in to your defensemen or stopping a rim behind the net are critical for gaining puck possession and giving your team a serious advantage in terms of breaking out and attacking with speed.

FOR DEFENSE: 

Closing the gap

I’m fairly certain that the defensemen I’ve coached over the years have heard me yell “gap up” more than anything else. Easier said than done, of course. Defensemen leave a big gap because they don’t want to get beat. Totally understood.

But in my mind, to be effective in girls’ hockey, you’ve got to pressure the other team at every possible opportunity. Being able to close the gap isn’t just something that happens in your own zone. It starts at the opponent’s blueline and works its way back to your own defensive zone. That means that your defensemen have to hold the opposing team’s blueline as long as possible, force turnovers in the neutral zone and make it very difficult for your opponents to gain the blueline and enter the  attacking zone. 

FOR FORWARDS: 

Picking the puck up off the boards

Every winger hates having to pick up the puck off the boards on the breakout. Unless you get a perfect pass on the tape without pressure, breaking the puck out effectively off the wall is a very challenging skill. 

In an ideal world, the defense would get the puck in-zone, make a hard tape to tape pass to a forward, who gave them a perfect passing target and already had their feet moving up the ice.  This rarely happens. Usually the winger is under pressure from a forward or a pinching defenseman on the opposition’s initial forecheck or your team has been stuck in your end for a while and they are struggling with transitioning from playing the defensive in-zone coverage to breaking out.  It’s all about timing and battling to gain possession of the puck. 

To become effective at these skills requires lots of repetition in practice and there will be many mistakes made.   There will be times that the goalie messes up while trying to play the puck, times when a defenseman gets beat badly trying to step up in the neutral zone, and times when a forward ices the puck trying to gain possession along the boards on the breakout.

It is unreasonable to expect players to be able to execute these skills at high speeds and under pressure in a game if we haven’t given them ample time to perfect them in practice.  Confidence is king in girls’ hockey, and we must get players comfortable with these challenging skills in practice if we want them to perform them effectively in games. 

To get complete access to articles, videos and secrets that addresses the specific needs of female hockey players, visit http://www.totalfemalehockeyclub.com. Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS, is an expert in the development of aspiring female hockey players. She is a former NCAA Division I captain at Dartmouth and played in the National Women’s Hockey League for six years. She is currently the Girls Hockey Director at the PEAC School for Elite Athletes in Toronto and is the Founder of Total Female Hockey.

Hockey sense 101

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Last Updated on Sunday, 27 May 2012 23:31

By Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS

I read an amazing article recently that explained in great deal why hockey is the smartest game in the world. It basically talks about two of the key components of what we typically call “game sense” and how they are more important in hockey than in any other sport. 

Those components are:

• Spatial intelligence

• Situational awareness

Spatial intelligence is the ability to take in all the things that are happening in a particular time and space on the ice and anticipate what might happen next. This kind of split-second decision making is made at every position.

We see it in defensemen trying to read what the opponents are going to do in a 2-on-1. We see it with goalies trying to stop a breakaway and with forwards trying to read what the goalie is giving them on said breakaway. 

Those are just a few basic examples of spatial intelligence. Keep in mind that these decisions are being made in reference to all the other players on the ice, where they are and what they are doing, not to mention the fact that you’re standing on knife blades, people are probably yelling at you and someone is likely trying to hit you.

The best example of a player who excelled at spatial intelligence would be Wayne Gretzky.  He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head and knew where he wanted to put the puck before he even got it. He had an amazing ability to read the game and make decisions that no one else on the ice had even dreamed of making. 

Situational awareness is very closely related to spatial intelligence. While spatial intelligence boils down to knowing everything that’s going on around you, situational awareness centers more on being conscious of all that’s going on in the context of the what the other players intend to do and anticipating their next move. 

To simplify it even further: Spatial intelligence is knowing what’s going on all around you. Situational awareness is understanding how the intentions and actions of those around you effect what’s going on around you. 

The players with the best “game sense” excel at both of these. When you couple these high-level mental components with tremendous individual skill, you get a fantastic all-around player who can both skate and think the game at high speeds.

Now to the untrained eye, hockey can sometimes seem like a brutal series of random collisions in which the puck somehow sporadically ends up in the net. To some, hockey appears to be a game of wild improvisation.

We know better. That’s why coaches put systems and tactics in place. To bring some degree of order to the chaos. We put these in place not because we want players to do everything “to the letter” every time. The systems and tactics are simply a framework for the game – a starting point for execution of a game plan and something to come back to when things get messy out there.

What every coach wants are players who can take what they’ve learned about systems and tactics in practice, couple that with their individual skills, and also be able to “think” the game at high speeds. Spatial intelligence and situational awareness are two of the toughest things to teach players. That’s why those who possess those traits are so valuable out on the ice. 

Needless to say, to have a group of players with great spatial intelligence and situational awareness, along with great skill, attitude and work ethic, would be a coach’s dream.

To get complete access to articles, videos and secrets that addresses the specific needs of female hockey players, visit http://www.totalfemalehockeyclub.com. Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS, is an expert in the development of aspiring female hockey players. She is a former NCAA Division I captain at Dartmouth and played in the National Women’s Hockey League for six years. She is currently the Girls Hockey Director at the PEAC School for Elite Athletes in Toronto and is the Founder of Total Female Hockey.