The new location at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio is superb. Arena is outstanding, campus is beautiful and facilities are all close to each other. Big upgrade from St Cloud.
Camp seems very well organized and excellent use of technology to keep players and parents informed
Parent meeting with Kristen (Wright) Sagaert discussing the process of player feedback and letter grades sounded very promising. Hopefully the execution delivers on the expectations that were set.
Jerseys are pretty nice. Still no names on the girls jerseys, but boys 17s camp going on concurrently have them
Playing on NHL sized rink this year – noticeable difference in time and space for players compared to the Olympic sized rinks in St Cloud
Quality of hockey is a little more team oriented and a slightly higher pace than what I saw last week at the showcase in Rochester.
Different experience watching in person than via streaming, games seems much faster in person.
Many college coaches watching the first day, but not as many as I expected.
Saw at least a couple of DI head coaches who don’t normally go to tournaments or showcases, but are here.
Delayed offsides were permitted on the first day. Interesting that they aren’t following USA Hockey rules.
First day averaged a little under 5 minutes of penalties per game, which is only about 10% of the game time (46 minutes). So far that seems quite reasonable compared to past years
Earlier this month my daughter attended the USA Hockey Pacific District Camp for the third and final time (she’s aging out of the U18 events). Now that the results have been posted, I am posting my thoughts on this year’s event. Feel free to read my previous summaries from the 2021 camp and 2022 camp to understand the three year experience.
Overall, operationally speaking, this was clearly the best run district camp of the three she attended.
Just like previous years, there were three practice/skills sessions and three games. The practice/skills sessions were well organized and structured – and in my opinion, allowed the evaluators to see how players performed both offensively and defensively beyond just the games.
More Teams
There were some significant changes from previous years. First, the number of teams for the 16/17 age group was increased from 4 teams to 6 teams (the 15’s age group had 4 teams similar to last year). There are arguments to be made on both sides about the pros and cons of increasing the number of players invited to attend. However, on-balance, as we try to grow the girls game on the west coast, I think it worked out just fine. The overall level of play may have been a little diluted, but the goodwill from attending the event works for me. Plus, the extra money it generated allowed more USA Hockey staff to attend from all over the country.
More Coaches
Unlike the last couple of years where it seemed to be only 2-4 coaches watching from the stands while another 2 coached from the bench. There seemed to always be at least ~6-8 coaches scouting from the roped-off coaches section in the stand. Another big change, as referenced above, was not only the number of participating coaches, but also the list of coaches and their role during the weekend was shared with all attendees via email. In the past, I had to work hard to identify who all the coaches were and decipher the role they played. The day after camp ended, we were emailed the full list of coaches, where they were from and what role they played (evaluator, volunteer, USA Hockey Staff) – which was awesome. No more guessing.
The only complaint I heard via several parents (from their daughters) was that it seemed that some of the coaches were over-coaching on the ice. There were lots of times coaches would stop drills and call everyone over or a coach would give detailed feedback to a specific player. Feedback is good – I love player feedback – but at an event like Districts, players don’t want to get drill-related feedback from every coach they interact with. What players really want is feedback on how to improve their overall game.
Same Number of National Camp Spots
I am not sure what players and parents expected in terms of realistically making the USA Hockey National Camps, but the odds aren’t good for most players. Here are the numbers of National invites (based on % of registrations of girls in the Pacific District):
Notes:
Only 1 2008 forward was selected to go straight to the 18s Camp (last year 1F and 1 D went straight to 18s)
Goalies are selected at the national level and not dependent on the proportion of district registrations
So hopefully, most players, especially those who were invited from the alternate lists (or not even originally selected) understood they were long shots to make it National Camp and were just happy to go to Las Vegas.
Goalie Development
Another positive from the event was when I talked to the goalie coaches for the district and she explained how they evaluate goalies, the process of providing goalies feedback and tracking their development from year-to-year. I wish they would have done something similar for skaters – because in the 3 years we’ve gone, there has been no pro-active mechanism to receive feedback from the event for skaters.
A few other points:
Games were two 32 minute running-time halves – which was 2 minutes more than last year
The refs were less noticeable this year compared to last year. Which is a good thing.
The jerseys were 100 times nicer than previous years (not embarrassing to have mismatched jerseys and socks like last year) – with a number scheme which made it clear who were 2006s and 2007s.
It would have been nice to also have the jersey #s included in the roster lists that were sent out so parents didn’t need to try to figure who the players were by themselves
Everyone had to travel to Vegas for the weekend, with many coming from out-of-district. I hope parents and players felt that the total cost of the weekend was worth it. Unless you were driving from California, the weekend had to be super-expensive.
This week, the USA Hockey NTDP released the names of the 45 2007’s invited to their evaluation camp. Over 50% of the players were born in the first 3 months of 2007. Malcolm Gladwell talked about this hockey phenomenon in his book Outliers, where the earlier you are born in the calendar year, the more likely you are to be get selected to elite teams. This is due to the size and age advantage over players born later in the year. It is a self-reinforcing cycle from atom/squirt ages – despite hockey being a late-development sport. 15 years later, this bias still exists.
One of my biggest frustrations over the last 18 months or so has been about providing feedback to players. Across many different playing environments I have been consistently disappointed in the lack of sophistication and priority on giving insightful, actionable feedback to players. This post discusses the good and bad of hockey coach feedback to players.
Here is what I’ve seen what most coaches are good at:
1. In-game feedback
For the most part, coaches have no problem talking to players after a shift and have a conversation about what just happened. Some coaches are more positive and constructive than others (e.g. “What did you see?” rather than “Here is what you did wrong…”). I doubt there are many coaches who last a reasonable amount of time without providing this basic level of constructive player feedback.
2. Overall team style of play / team concepts
I won’t say systems – because some youth coaches do play systems and others have a type of hockey they want to play which focuses more on skills rather than set plays and rules. In general, coaches know how to set theses expectations and work on the in practice. Thus it can be pretty easy to give this kind of feedback either on the bench or in the locker room.
However, here’s what coaches generally aren’t good at:
A. Having position-specific, age and level appropriate development framework
What are the prioritized skills and attributes a player should be competent in? What are their biggest strengths that they can leverage? What areas do they need to level up so that they can minimize those attributes being exposed. For example, skating, puck handling, shot strength and accuracy. From what I’ve seen, it is usually one-off feedback with the player having to work on it with by themselves or with their own skills development coach.
Having a coach show personalized clips to an individual player is very rare. Many coaches do not have the time or resources to provide player-specific reviews. However, it can be a shared responsibility between player, coach and parent to clip together game footage and to discuss together.
B. In-season feedback
Providing individual report cards or interim check-ins throughout the season on what strengths and development opportunities like skills and/or concepts for a player. For example, Darryl Belfry likes to look at players over a 3 or 4 game segment and track with video and basic stats (e.g. how many puck touches turn into a positive or negative play) and then discuss them with a player. Some coaches give mid-year reviews for their players and in my experience it looks like a bullet list of 3 or items for the player to work on. However, the onus is then on the player to figure out how to get better at those items on their own.
C. Holistic, high level feedback
This is a tough one.
Being candid with a player about where they are with their game at the moment can be a very tough conversation regardless of the players abilities. All players are an unfinished product. And in youth hockey they are still a long way from their peak potential – so providing the appropriate context and perspective is not always easy.
Why don’t all coaches provide holistic feedback? Some…
Just aren’t good coaches (or at least not as good as they think they are)
Don’t have a long-term development framework for players at each level
Don’t know how to provide feedback effectively
Don’t invest the time in the process (don’t have time)
It is not a priority for them
Don’t have an incentive to put in the time
Don’t have a framework
Fear of parent/player reaction
Politics
Unfortunately, I have seen the above at almost every level, but most disappointing has been seeing it at the highest levels of hockey. For example, in a rare instance of this being done well…one player who was in consideration for a national team, received lots of feedback and what the coaches wanted to them do this season. However, what was more common are the many examples where other players attending national camps received little to no meaningful feedback, even when requested. It seems that unless a coach or organization has a vested, long-term interest in a player or team, they will not put in the time or effort that most players need.
As a parent or a youth player, it is important to be realistic on the types of feedback to expect from your team coach based on the level of play and the club/program you signed up for. In most situations, you will likely have to go beyond the basic feedback practices of your coach and find ways to supplement them with other experts you trust.
(Note to my kids current coaches: I am not referring to you – this post was mostly written over the past summer and incorporates conversations I’ve had with parents from all over the country).
This past weekend I was in Las Vegas to watch my second USA Hockey Pacific Districts Camp. The general format was pretty much the same as last year, with 3 practices and 3 games. However, there were a few subtle differences from the previous year that I wanted to share. Here are my notes:
Camp Structure
This year, my daughter was participating in the 16/17’s group (made up of 2005 and 2006 birth years). There was also a 15’s group (2007 players) just like last year, but in addition there was a 14’s group (2008 birth year). Each group was made up of 4 teams – typically 9 or 10 forwards, 6 D and 2 goalies.
Last year, 16 players from the 15’s groups were sent to national camp (8F, 5D, 3G); 8 players were selects for the 16/17s camp (5F, 3D, 0G) and 4 players picks to go straight to the U18s camp (2F, 2D, 0G). There are no exact numbers provided for this year other than the guidance in the USA Hockey Guidebook.
Unlike last year, the games were two 30-minute run-time periods. Last year it was only 24 minutes per period, and it really made a difference in ice time. Last year, a player would typically only get 10 or 11 shifts per game, this year it felt like it was between 15 and 20.
Quality of Play
In addition, I noticed a significantly higher level of play at the 16/17s level than last year at the 15’s age groups. This was likely due to a combination of factors. Since at this age group is a combined-age tryout, only the top half of players from each age group made the camp, therefore raising the bar on the quality of player to be selected to the camp. Also, with the players being a year or two older than the 15’s, the difference in development was pretty easy to see. I should note that several alternates from the regional tryouts were added to rosters as some of the original selections did not come – so you could see a range in talent on just about every team. Finally, unlike what I saw with the 15’s, the shift length for players at the higher level was much more reasonable. Rarely did I see 2 or 2.5 minute shifts. My general impression was that the overall level was pretty good with a few elite players, hockey in the Pacific District still has a long way to go to match the skill level I saw the previous weekend at a 3-on-3 Minnesota High School tournament.
Refs-In-Training
An interesting twist in this year’s event, is that in parallel to the players camp, it was also some kind of camp/evaluation for referees. Not sure if it was USA Hockey-specific or IIHF. The good news, is that the refs took their job very seriously – and didn’t let many things go that you normally see in a summer showcase (e.g. offsides, icings etc.). Alternatively, there were several awkward moments, such as refs being out of position and running into players in the middle of plays, and being a little over-zealous with not permitting teams to make line changes before face-offs. There was one top player who got called for a penalty when the out-of-position ref caused her to lose the puck – and the player let the ref know she wasn’t pleased . I am all for better training of refs and helping them improve and certainly don’t expect perfection, but at this type of event, ref training shouldn’t be at the expense of the players who were there to try out.
Selection Process
I estimated there were between 20 and 25 coaches representing USA Hockey at the event – whether on-ice with the players or evaluating from their private viewing area. It seemed to be a similar mix to last year of DIII coaches, current NCAA players, Pacific district coaches and other USA Hockey representatives. From a parents perspective, it would be nice to know what some of the evaluation criteria are for each position. However, from all the experienced eyes on the players over the course of the four days, I am trusting that their selection process is reasonably objective and can truly figure out who the top players were to move on to the national camps.
A nice improvement from last year, was the fact that USA Hockey clearly declared the dates in which the results would be published, May 25th. So there was no ambiguity and confusion about what the expectations are for the outcome of the selection camp. Even better, it is less than 2 weeks from the event, unlike last year when it was almost a month delay.
This is the third and final post focusing on the college recruiting process based my experience as a parent at the USA Hockey Girls Camp that took place in St Cloud Minnesota from July 10-15, 2021.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what to write for this post. I wanted to specifically discuss what happened at the USA Hockey 15’s camp in St. Cloud. However, I have come to realize that it would be incomplete without providing additional context about the entire women’s college recruiting process. As a result, for this post I am mostly just going to stick to the facts and data I collected. Separately, I will soon publish a detailed post about what I have figured out so far about the end-to-end recruiting process to give the perspective needed for any individual event.
What became obvious quite quickly, is that coaches from all over the country were flocking to St Cloud to see the top 216 15-year old female players. Kristin Wright stated at the opening parents meeting that 90% of schools would be at the Development Camp at some point during the week. Based on all the logos I saw that number must have been pretty close.
Here are the schools I saw first-hand, but I am sure this is not a complete list:
At a basic level coaches had two objectives for attending the event:
Watching players already on their list and track their performance/development
Identify new players to add to their follow list
Since I was sitting in the stands with most of the coaches I had a few observations. Some coaches were very social and others kept to themselves. Some showed up just the first couple of days, others just for the last 2 or 3 days. Unlike 16/17s camp which took place a couple of weeks earlier, coaches can’t talk to the 15’s parents – so there was almost engagement between coaches and parents. Schools that I did not see their logos seemed to have on-ice coaches represented at either the 16/17s camp or the U18 camp. Many coaches had printed rosters or iPads to identify players and take notes. But quite a few did not appear to have a method to take notes or remember players. Each school seem to have a different scouting strategy/plan. Some schools had multiple coaches, while other only had one representative. As well, some scouts only watched games, while other watched all the public practices and scrimmages.
A couple of schools really stood out to me during the week
The first was Boston University head coach Brian Durocher who spent the first three days watching almost every practice and game. He would just stand on his own down along the glass quietly taking notes on a little piece of paper. And when there was a break on one rink he go watch players on the other rink. He was very unassuming, but clearly using his many years of experience to evaluate players and take copious notes.
The other school that impressed, was the team of Ohio State coaches (at least four in total both on-ice and off-ice) who were making sure they watched all the girls on both rinks throughout the week. They typically sat in a group around head coach Nadine Muzerall and watched a lot of hockey together. As a Michigan grad it isn’t easy for me to say nice things about OSU, but clearly they have prioritized scouting and their recruiting process as a key to their success.
In my next post I will discuss what I have learned about different stages of the women’s college recruiting process. This will help answer many of the questions I have received about how much should a player be seen in the spring and summer at showcases and events compared to their regular season team.
At the start of camp, Kristen Wright helped provide perspective on how to think about the bigger picture for what the week was about. The 15’s Camp is really just the first step in a USA Hockey player’s journey at the national level. For many it can be a multi-year process including their college years as the they try to be included in the conversation to make the National Women’s Team.
Realistically, in the short term, for most girls, the ultimate goal of attending any of the girls camps (15,16/18 or U18), is to be invited to the Women’s National Festival which includes players from all age groups (National Team, U23 and U18) being considered for a national roster.
However, for the week of camp, unless something truly exceptional occurred, this Covid year, there would be no decision on advancing or further outcome beyond the camp for any of the players in attendance. Everyone would just head back home richer from the experience and will go though a similar process next year to make the 2022 16/17s camp or if they we one of the top players, potentially go directly to the U18’s camp.
Given the above, what did I think were the objectives for the camp from a USA Hockey perspective?
Learn about the USA Hockey national program for girls/women and understand what it takes to compete and potentially make a national team (U18, U23, Women’s National Team)
Get seen & scouted by USA Hockey Coaches (to help get on the radar for the U18 Camp for 2022)
Get feedback on strengths and development opportunities
Get a benchmark of how good a player is relative to their peer group
1. Learn about the USA Hockey National Program
During the parent meeting, Kristen Wright shared the three core values of the USA Hockey program:
Relentless
Pride
Together
And from what I could sense as an outside observer, all the activities for the week centered around these principles. In addition, the theme of the week focused more on helping players be the best they can be rather than solely focus on what it would take to make any of the different age-specific national teams. Given the size of the camp, on balance, that seemed like a more realistic focus. Better to focus on the values that players would need to consistently demonstrate to make a team rather than hockey-specific attributes that may not resonate at this time for most of the girls.
2. Get seen & scouted by USA Hockey Coaches
As mentioned in my previous post, the on-ice coach to player ratio was about 1:3 with somewhere in the range of 70-100 USA Hockey representatives participating in the camp. I am assuming that USA Hockey leadership had some type of scouting information collection capability from both on-ice and off-ice observers at both games and practices. In addition, team coaches, team leaders and interns all got to observe their players both at the rink and outside of the rink during the week of camp. Given all these points of data, I would expect that there is some type of player tracking tool with a summary of the information that was collected on each player. There must be some type of report card (beyond the testing results) that was being kept on each player. Ideally, this database would be used to benchmark players if they return to another USA Hockey camp.
As Kristen Wright alluded to the parents on the first afternoon, roughly speaking players are group into A’s (Top 25 or Top 50), B’s (the next ~100) and C’s (the lowest ~75 players). However, the messaging was clear, it really shouldn’t matter right now for players to hear what level they were evaluated. The girls were there to learn about what it took to make it to the next level in USA Hockey and they need to take those learnings and go back and work hard and get better for next year. This year’s evaluations would primarily be used as a way to track development and improvement in a year from now.
3. Get feedback on strengths and development opportunities
Each player received some type of feedback from one of their coaches during the week. Depending on the team and coach, the feedback session occurred during the second half of camp and was a 1-on-1 meeting with one of the two team coaches. Since I was not a player, I could only gather information indirect accounts from players or parents, so my sample size may not be big enough. Evaluation was almost entirely qualitative than quantitative. However, the one consistent theme I heard was that the feedback session wasn’t that great. Comments ranged from advice being too generic (e.g. “go back home work hard, get better and come back and show us what you can do next year”) to not offering any real thoughtful insights to putting the onus on the player to self-evaluate and then mostly agreeing with the player’s evaluation. The consistent theme that I heard was that not enough effort was put into preparing for the feedback session.
In my opinion, this was an area that is an area that the camp could have had a bigger impact.
My personal thoughts are there should be some type of formal feedback process. Ideally with a standardize report card by position (goalie, defense, winger, center). Each player should have received written, detailed feedback on their strengths and key development opportunities (e.g. 3 for each) to help take their game to the next level (which would be personalized to the appropriate for that individual player). I realize this is a tremendous amount of work, requires a lot of coordination between all the coaches and has some pretty significant risks if not properly implemented. And I agree 100% with Kristen Wright the goal is build and maintain player confidence is key. However, given how much players and parents are invested (in every sense of the word) in their hockey development, having some type of tangible, standardized evaluation would be invaluable for these players. To be clear, I thought the week was exceptionally well-run and a great experience for all involved, but this was my one disappointment as a parent.
Since we didn’t get that feedback, I ended up doing it myself using footage from the games available via HockeyTV. I’ve started break down the video and comparing them to the top players from the U18 camp who made the National Festival. Most parents probably won’t do this level of video analysis, so there will be a gap in direction for many of the players. It’s disappointing that not all the girls will get a deep dive on their performance.
4. Get a benchmark of how good a player is relative to their peer group
My impression was that while the standard deviation at the 15’s Camp was much smaller than at Pacific District camp (where the gap from top to bottom was pretty significant) you could still see big differences from the elite players to some of the marginal players. Depending on the cohesiveness of the team, it was apparent where some players focused more on showcasing their individual talents rather than trusting their teammates and playing as a team. It was great to see multiple passes between teammates being well-executed to create scoring chances. However, in many games missed passes and turnover-after-turnover was occurring on a frequent basis, especially for the first couple of games.
One thing that really stood out to me quite frequently after I saw a player make a great play and I would then look-up where they were from, was how often they were a Minnesota High School player from a school I had never heard of. It was the first time I saw first-hand the high level of players produced by Minnesota hockey on the girls side of things.
In terms of benchmarking, if a player was observant of their teammates, they could pretty easily see which ones were more effective than others (and why). And they could also see the ones who either struggled on the skills side of things (e.g. skating, passing, positional play) or playing a team game. This was on the skater side of things. Since I am no expert on goalies, I am not sure how puck-stoppers would self-evaluate relative to their peers, but hopefully they could see the wide range of styles and abilities that different goalies demonstrated during the goalie-specific sessions.
These were my observations from the USA Hockey U15s girls camp and how I thought it met the objectives for the week from a USA Hockey perspective. While I wished there was a little more direction on the path to USA Hockey success, I fully understand why this is still the top of player funnel from a national team point-of-view.
In the final post about the 15s Girls camp, I will discuss the camp from a college recruiting perspective.
