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2024 Girls Hockey Hockey Tryouts Minor Hockey Player Development Youth Hockey

10 Tips for Youth Hockey Tryouts

Tryout season has begun in both the United States and Canada. Having now gone through the process from 10U all the way up to 19U now, I have seen many of the different situations that occur at this time of year. The entire process was non-linear with lots of bumps along the way. Things didn’t always work out perfectly in the short term, but it all worked out in the long term. Based on our family’s experience, here are some tips for this year’s tryout season:

1. Player development is more important than winning games

Regardless of what age or level of youth hockey you play, it is 100% more important for your player to improve as much as possible rather than winning games.  Now, losing sucks and winning championships can certainly help with exposure.  But unless you are old enough to be recruited to the next level, given a choice between playing on a winning team, but not getting better or losing but taking major steps in your development – it should be a no-brainer which one to take. 

2. The best coach should be the highest priority in deciding where to play

There are many many factors in deciding where to try out and play, including distance from home, cost, practice and game schedule etc. But the most important should be to find the best coach that will develop your player the most. 

3. Try not to be the best or worst player on the team

All things being equal, you want to be in the middle of the pack player on a team  – not the top or the bottom. Although or one season it is okay to be at the top or the bottom. Being the best means you may not be challenged as much as you are capable of. And being the worst can cause lots of frustrations. If you are in the middle, that is a great opportunity to work your way up the lineup if you can.  Of course all players want to be on the power play and penalty kill.  A good coach will cycle through all the lines on a team. 

4. Politics is a fact of life

Like it or not, there is politics in tryouts.  Just accept it for what it is and recognize that it may or may not work in your favor. Wasting energy on why a player was put ahead of yours is not going to be productive. The reality is that there is politics at every level of hockey especially at the district/provincial and national level. Just try to be the best player you can be and let the chips fall where they may. If you are that close to making or not making a team, then that is something that is within your control for next time by just getting better.

5. The most important training has already taken place

The last week of training before tryouts won’t likely be the difference between making a team and not. While there are small things that can help a player succeed at tryouts – the things that will most impact their level of play and success at tryouts will have taken place during the months leading up to tryouts. There shouldn’t be a need to spend 3 hours each night at the rink the week before tryouts.

6. Coaches are also evaluating the parents

Many coaches are judging parents as much as the kids. Nothing wrong with getting to know the coaching staff and how they plan to run the team. Also, it is important to make sure that you share the same philosophies on how the coach plans to run the team. But be aware that the coach is also evaluating if you will be a “high maintenance” parent.

7. Tryouts may not actually be tryouts

As kids get older (i.e. U14 and above), it’s okay that the coach already decided on many if not all of the players who will make the team. Tryouts are just a point in time.  Depending on the club, many coaches run “development camps” leading up to tryouts. This way they can review players over an extended period of time.  In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with them using that evaluation period to already decide if they want a player on their team or not.

8. Many clubs make money on tryouts – don’t waste yours

Be wary of some clubs who use tryouts as a way to make money.   There are many clubs who charge several hundred dollars for players to tryouts and will accepts 3-4 times as many players to try out as they have spots.  While occasionally trying out for the “experience” or “getting more ice time” might make sense, you should know if your player has a real chance of making the team before you show up.  Don’t waste your money on attending a tryout when that money would be better spent on a lesson or two with a skills coach.

9. Coaches aren’t perfect

Don’t expect perfection from coaches.  Your player isn’t perfect and neither are coaches.  Each club has a different way of evaluating players – some as a group with  “objective” observers and some with just the coaching staff for a team.  No method is perfect, however some are more sophisticated than others.  Know before you show up what to expect and realize just like players and referees, coaches don’t always get everything exactly right. If you don’t what to expect before you show up to a tryout and know the pros and cons of how a club conducts tryouts, then you share some of the blame too.

10. Feedback is a gift

Ask for feedback in a professional manner after tryouts if you didn’t make the team.  If an organization really cares about youth hockey development they would be happy to provide additional insights as to why a specific player didn’t make the cut.  Take the feedback as a gift even if you disagree with the feedback.  Do not argue or make your case as to why you saw things differently. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you at least know why and could potentially take action on the feedback. Get better for your next tryout and try out for a team where your player would not be so close to making or not making the team.

Bonus: Hockey makes players better people

Not making a team can be very emotional and challenging.  But I guarantee, if you have a resilient player, it will all work out fine.  Both my kids did not make teams in youth hockey, but they still ended up playing at the highest level of hockey for their age group when they got older.  Take is as an good life lesson.

ICYMI: Watch this Episode on Girls Tryouts with Alyssa Gagliardi

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Coaching Player Development Youth Hockey

Does your Player Have an In-season Personal Development Plan?

You can’t depend solely on your team coach to make you a better hockey player. There, I said it.

In my experience, I haven’t seen any team coaches work with individual players to create personal development plans. Typically, I’ve seen pre-season and mid-season reviews which discuss overall player development. And I’ve seen coaches ask players to put together a list what they need to work on. But after that, it is usually up to the player to get better at those items themselves.

During the season, almost all coaches focus on team concepts like breakouts, special teams (power play and penalty kill), defensive positioning etc. They also spend time in practice on basic skill development like passing, skating, board battles and game situations like 2-on-1s.

In reality, team coaches don’t have a lot of time in practice to work on the individual, unique needs of each player.  Of course, there is always the coach who spends extra time with one or two ‘special’ players on a team and gives them more attention. But, on average, you can’t expect a team coach to be responsible for working on your player’s highest priority development needs.

To get better as a hockey player you need to be working throughout the season on the areas in your game that will have the biggest impact on your overall improvement and success.

So if you’re team coach isn’t working directly with you or your player on a personal development plan, how do you develop one?

In a previous post, I described that I am a big believer in Darryl Belfry’s methodology of tracking high frequency events and success/failure rates to prioritize what a player should work on. After a series of 3 or 4 games, you should be able to look at the video and see which areas of your game you are repeatedly under-performing. From this analysis, you should be able to prioritize 3-5 skills or attributes that you need to work on.  This is your personal development plan.

The next step is to figure out how to get better at those areas.  Of course this will depend on what your specific needs are – but it could be anything from working on skating or shooting the puck to positioning on the ice.  Some might be easy fixes and others might take months to work on to gain the required proficiency.  The key is to find someone or somehow to help you get better and to work on those areas between games. This is easier said than done, because figuring out the right person to help or how to help yourself may take some effort.

I have had many parents complain to me that their kid’s coach isn’t helping them get better at the areas that the player really needs help on.  My response is that I have learned not to expect any team coach to make my kids better. Most youth team coaches don’t have the time or interest in going that deep with every player on a team. If the team coach does do it, that’s a bonus and an indication of a high-level coach who “gets it” – but in reality they are rare to find.

Key Takeaway: You can’t only expect team coaches to make you a better player, you need to be responsible for you own development.

Categories
Coaching Minor Hockey Parents Youth Hockey

How I Applied Lessons from Belfry Hockey

Darryl Belfry Hockey Book
Darryl Belfry Hockey Book

I loved Darryl Belfry’s book Belfry Hockey, but I don’t believe I was Darryl Belfry’s target audience, because I am neither a hockey coach nor a skills instructor.  As I mentioned in my first post, I’m just a hockey dad. I do not profess to be a hockey expert, but I do have a deep passion for helping my two kids who currently play 14U AA youth hockey. Thus, as a parent, what did I hope to learn from Darryl Belfry’s book Belfry Hockey? And how could I help apply these lessons?

My goals when reading Belfry Hockey:

  1. An understanding of which skills are important for my kids to develop (i.e. “Skills That Separate”)
  2. See which skills aren’t getting developed with their current coaches
  3. Figure out my options on how they can fill in the skills gap

One of Darryl’s key training objectives is to help a player learn a skill they can use “tomorrow”. Therefore, given Covid’s impact on our season, I took on the challenge of applying these insights immediately with my kids. Here are the takeaways from Belfry Hockey that I have recently tried to implement with my kids.

Teaching my son the concept of Platform Skills vs. Placeholder Skills

Is the skill you’re using a placeholder skill or a platform skill? There’s a big difference between the two.

Page 122 – Chapter 11: Skill Continuum

My son is both a late birthday and not an early-developer like several of his teammates. Therefore, there are times when he has seen less ice time due to his physical development. At the same time, Belfry perfectly describes some of the placeholder skills that my kids have seen from teammates in peewee and bantam hockey who would be considered the top players on their teams getting those additional minutes.  

Examples of placeholder skills:

  1. Slap shots off the rush
  2. Using straight-line speed to rush by defensemen along the boards
  3. Banging in rebounds in front of the net

Explaining to a 13-year old that he is building better skills so that two or three years from now he will have more translatable skills to the next level is not simple to understand. But having a framework of “platform vs. placeholder skills” is a simple concept to continually reference until his physical development catches up to his peers.

Tracking High-Frequency Events and Success Rates Using Video

When you’re working with video, you have to be very careful that every player in a game is a like a fingerprint. What we want to see is the detail inside of each fingerprint

Page 162 – Chapter 13 – Video-to-Game Transfer

I record almost every game that my kids play. I use two GoPros to video the game from behind the nets and some rinks also have LiveBarn to provide a third angle. As a result, I have a pretty good asset to begin my analysis with. I used to just look at the quality of each shift individually, but thanks to Darryl Belfry I track the game in a whole new way.

Since reading the book, I have created a spreadsheet to do the following:

  1. Track event frequency and success rates
  2. Edit clips together from 3-4 games by event/game situation so my player can see all the same event-types in a single video (typically 60 – 90 seconds of clips).

Here is a partial summary of an “instance list” from a recent weekend of games for my daughter (who plays defense):

Transfer Tracking: Problem Solving Frequency and Success Rates

Our standard is we want to try and get as many high-frequency elements as possible to be an 8 out of 10 success rate

Page 155 – Chapter 10: Triple Helix: Awareness

Using the metrics from the games, my daughter and I were able to watch each clip and the specific situational context for success & failure. As a result, we were able to see certain patterns emerge that could immediately be worked on, here are a couple of examples:

  1. Trouble when playing the off wing

One pattern we identified right away was that she wasn’t recognizing the handedness of the puck carrier which caused her to attack from a poor angle.  This insight was helped by remembering an article about the 88 Summit with Patrick Kane from a couple of years ago.

2. Linear entry vs. change in angle when carrying the puck in across the blue line.

We are now working on way to cross the blue line to get into the “hot zone” with time and space.

Creating Multiple Options for Specific Situations

We want to make sure as part of the Category 1 skills that once the player has established body position and encounters contact, he’s able to use the contact as an asset – an accelerant or an ability to create separation

Page 145 – Chapter 11: Skill Continuum

With my son, one area we have spent a lot of time working on is in the corner or along the wall in the offensive zone.  We have been focused on adding multiple options for him to have in his toolkit for these situations, specifically:

a. The Kane Push:

b. Reverse Hits

c. Skating through the hands:

d. Using the trap door:

e. The Chuck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwe_vkUdt34

We shall see if he is able to apply any of these new skills into a game situation, but at least I know he has them as potential tools in his toolkit.

As I used to write in my Grade 5 book reviews, I really liked Belfry Hockey and I recommend it to all my hockey friends and coaches. I plan to write one more post about Belfry Hockey so that a few more concepts are brought to life via visuals and video that are a little hard to digest from just reading the book.

Categories
Minor Hockey Youth Hockey

How to Develop a Great Hockey Player: Grit

Grit Sidney Crosby

In this final post about how to develop a great hockey player, we discuss grit. Grit is the ability for a player to demonstrate focus and determination to overcome the inevitable challenges that come with high-level hockey.

Overcoming Adversity

In hockey, many “early bloomers” don’t face adversity at a young age. If your player is lucky enough to be the best player on their team when they are 12, 13, 14 or even 15, their world will likely change when they start playing against the best players in their age group. This can come from peers starting to catch up via size and speed. Or it can come from playing against better players by moving from being a “big fish in a small pond” to being a “small fish in a big pond”.

I have seen firsthand how learning from failure early on in my kids’ hockey development has helped them become more resilient, focused and competitive. One of the biggest drivers of my their developing some grit was them not making the team they wanted to when one was 10 and the other was 11 years old.

Being Coachable

While grit is about handling adversity, players also need to be able to handle feedback and being coachable. Every coach is different so being able to adapt to situations where the player-coach relationship is not ideal is another challenge that will likely need to be overcome. How is your player’s body language when hearing constructive feedback?  A player’s ability to “learn how to learn” is a secret weapon that can be one the primary factors in their success. It is what Sidney Crosby considers one of his greatest assets.

Learning to Compete

For some players being competitive is in their DNA, for others it is a learned skill. How driven are you to “be the best you can be” while still being a good teammate?  Specifically, how do you handle yourself both on and off the ice.  Keeping in mind the ups and down of a game and a season. As mentioned in my first post in this series, hockey development is a marathon not a sprint.

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

If your player is old enough (>12 years old) then I would strongly recommend having them read Angela Duckworth’s Grit. The book details why naturally talented people many times fail to succeed, but others with less obvious skill have the tenacity to persevere and overcome challenges to develop into leaders in their fields. Finding a way for your player to have a passionate persistence to get better every day is the last ingredient needed to develop a great hockey player.

This post is the final in a series on How to Develop a Great Hockey Player (Intro).

Categories
Parents Youth Hockey

How to Develop a Great Hockey Player: Natural Gifts, Talent and Luck

In this fifth post about how to develop a great hockey player, we discus how talent, natural gifts and luck play a key role in hockey development. While it is possible to consider these attributes out of a player’s or parent’s control, they can certainly be influenced.

Natural Gifts

Let’s be candid, being blessed with size and/or speed gives a young player an advantage. Combine that with the luck of being born in the first 3 months of the year and basically they are born on first or second base (to mix our sports metaphors). They are given a lead over their peers that combined with the other factors that contribute to being a great player can be hard to catch-up to. In addition, natural talent also helps. If you just don’t have the coordination or adeptness for the game it can be hard to come. I was at a game recently, where the natural build of one of players was just not a “hockey body”, short legs big trunk, so not matter how hard this player tried, they just couldn’t keep up with the top players on the ice and likely would never will.  However, having natural gifts, while necessary are not sufficient for greatness. 

Talent

The one attribute which you may not be born with but can develop is talent. Hard work is essential.  Getting better every day. Because even if you were born with talent you have to continue to improve, otherwise others will pass you over time. There is a long list of talented players whose NHL careers didn’t appear to achieve their full potential (names who come to mind are Rob Schremp, Josh Ho Hsiang and Nail Yakapov) despite being having tremendous natural talent. These types of players struggled to sustain lengthy careers because they were not able to fill in gaps in their game.  As you make it to each new level, players can’t just continue to rely on just their natural gifts they need a work ethic and a continuous improvement mindset.

Luck

Yes, luck plays a role in hockey. And not just puck luck. For example, I know of a youth player who didn’t make a team they tried out for and then ended up playing for a fantastic coach that changed the trajectory of the player’s hockey development.  In another instance, a player was able to get more power-play and penalty-kill time because a teammate broke their leg (well, not so lucky for the teammate). Even at the pros, whether it is a scout who just happens to be in the stands for a game, finding the right coach or team situation, luck can certainly play a role in which path a player follows and can accelerate their road to greatness.

This post is the fifth in a series on How to Develop a Great Hockey Player (Intro).

Categories
Coaching Parents Youth Hockey

How to Develop a Great Hockey Player: Quality Coaching

Julie Chu Women's Hockey Coach

In this fourth post about how to develop a great hockey player, the focus is on quality coaching.  Let me be clear that I am not talking about what makes a great coach. What I am talking about is a coach who makes a great player. These are not necessarily the same thing. For example, a coach who only plays his best players at 12 years old in order to win games and championships at the expense of all the development of half the team is not necessarily a great coach, but if your kids is the one getting lots of ice time and feedback, then that coach could indeed be accelerating the development of that individual player.  I hope to write another post about what makes a great coach at a later date.

Time & Effort: 

First and foremost a coach who cares by putting the work to help at both the team and individual level is the table stakes for developing into great player.

Technical Expertise:

Striking the balance between leaning how to play team hockey and individual skills development. Specifically, the basics like skating, shooting, puckhandling but also position-specific tools to be great at their position (both on offense and defense – unless you are a goalie). Examples would be on-ice positioning, decision making, finding time and space, creativity and using deception.

Feedback: 

A quality coach gives feedback that is actionable to the player. They personalize the communication so the individual can understand how to change their behavior in a way that is specific to them. Darryl Belfry wrote an excellent chapter on how to give feedback in his new book Belfry Hockey.

Motivation:

While the old-school hockey way has been motivation by intimidation, times have changed. And each individual player is different. But finding a coach who can get the most out of a player by figuring which buttons to push to help make them a great player is obviously a critical attribute.

Enables Grit:

I will talk about this more in my next post, but teaching a player how to be resilient during the ups and down of a season.  Helping teach a player the tools to handle failure and overcome obstacles is one of the key life lessons that hockey is supposed to teach youth athletes.

Encourages two-way communication:

Every hockey coach is different and each has their own philosophies on how they want their players to play the game. As your player moves from coach to coach they will bring their past experience and habits/methods from their past coaches with them. The ability for a great player to discuss and debate with a coach the “why” and the “how” a certain situation should be played is a critical problem solving skill great players should possess.

My favorite book on a great coach who developed great players is “Thank You Coach” by former CFL player Angus Reid who had a long football career despite being highly undersized to play the center position. The book is dedicated to a coach who taught him what he needed to be a successful player despite “having no business playing professional football for 13 years”.

This post is the fourth in a series on How to Develop a Great Hockey Player (Intro).

Categories
Coaching hockey Parents Podcast Women's Hockey Youth Hockey

#1 – The Hockey Think Tank Podcast

Hockey Think Tank

Top 10 Podcasts for Girl Hockey Players (and their Parents)

When the The Minor Hockey podcast was cancelled by TSN Radio a couple of years ago I was very disappointed and was searching high and low for another youth hockey podcast. Almost immediately I stumbled upon The Hockey Think Tank’s fifth episode with Kendall Coyne Schofield (before she appeared in the 2019 All Star Game). Since then I have been one of their biggest fans and making sure my kids listen to their podcast in the car when we are driving to the rink. Topher Scott and Jeff Lovechio are former players who both now coach youth hockey. They are both positive, likeable, sincere & knowledgeable and their guests are spectacular. 

Girls Hockey Talk

When they do have a female hockey player on the show there is always a nugget or two I get from the episode specific to the girl’s game. Alyssa Gagliardi was a guest who provided good insight on her hockey journey starting with boys hockey all the way to the U.S. Olympic team.  This past summer, in collaboration with the PWHPA HTT had a series of shows and online programming specific go the women’s game. Interviews included Hockey Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford and University of Minnesota-Duluth women’s head coach Maura Crowell.

Must-Listen for Parents

One of the best parts of the Hockey Think Tank are the discussions about what a successful hockey journey looks like for most kids from youth all the way to the pros. It usually isn’t a straight line.  So many of the guests discuss the struggles they faced and the grit they had to have to make it.  Most parents can relate to not having an ‘early-bloomer’ player and how to navigate the bumpy road by focusing on player development versus wins.  Guests like Patrick O’Sullivan and Martin St Louis discuss being youth hockey coaches and what really matters in player development from 8-18 years of age – which is different from what most coaches practice and preach.

Recently, The Hockey Think Tank published their Parent Survival Guide. It is an excellent resource for hockey parents who want the straight goods about navigating the complex world to from youth to junior to college hockey. While it primarily focuses on the path that boys take, many of the principles apply to women’s hockey (without the extra step of junior hockey between high school and college).

If you are going to listen to only one podcast as a youth hockey player or parent, The Hockey Think Tank is the one we would recommend.

This post is part of a series of blogs on the Top 10 Podcasts for Girl Hockey Players (and their Parents). You can read the background on this list from the start of this series.

Previous Podcasts on the Top 10 List:

#10 – Hockey Training: Become a Better Hockey Player Podcast

#9 – From the Point Women’s Hockey Podcast

#8 – The Lyndsey Fry Hockey Audio Experience

#7 – Let’s Go! Hockey Podcast

#6 – Over the Goal Line: A CUWIH Podcast

#5 – The Curious Competitor with Connor Carrick

#4 – Glass and Out Podcast by The Coaches Site

#3 – Grassroots: The Minor Hockey Show

#2 – RUSH Hockey Talk

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