Time On Ice/Skills Versus Systems

[CubanPuckstoppr]

Have you ever had an inadequacy brought to your attention?
I have, in this thread Question for the members

My simplistic answer was blown away by others’ responses. I feel like I’m miles behind others.

I see this quote from that thread and can only nod my head and say, “He is right”.

Originally Posted by CoachJester

Goaltenders need to pay attention in practice when the team is practicing the forecheck, and defensive plays. They need to recognize and understand the threats that each forecheck presents and how defensive pressure will effect the attack.

Since I'm on a tangent, I started this thread to keep his thread clean.
The kids I work with get two 50 minute practices per week, one on full ice, one on half ice. I believe this to be typical for youth programs in the Mid-Atlantic area. This is the pattern right up to Bantams, up to 8th grade to frame the age in school years. (and I see CoachJester working with HS players and creating this great on ice awareness).

Feeling pressed for ice we devote 75% of the time to skills, and 25% to systems. That leaves 20 minutes per week devoted to systems. Let’s assume half of the time is spent in each zone, leaving 12.5 minutes per zone.


I’m also thinking that 12.5 minutes a week won’t get the job done as far as “systems recognition”.

With that said, How much time per week does you team get on ice (what age level, full/half ice)?

What percent of time do you spend on skills versus systems?

I feel I’m off the mark here any feedback is welcome.

[madgoaieskillz0]

My varsity team has either four or five on-ice practices a week. We either have one or two games a week and league rules mandate that we can play only six out of seven days per week.

We have an hour and a half of ice on Monday, an hour on Tuesday, an hour and a half on Wednesday, an hour before school on Thursday, and an hour on Friday.

Obviously, we have the full ice as a varsity program.

Early in the season we spant a lot of time working on walkthroughs and repetitions of our faceoff sets, power play and penalty killing, and several forechecks. We would take a few minutes with each line and go through it at half speed a few times and then move on to full speed drills and later incorporate it into a scrimmage. Now that our season is more than halfway over, we have achieved a certain degree of mastery at those systems and now spend practice time mainly on skills.

However, whenever an upcoming opponent has an odd forecheck of defensive setup, we watch film and modify our own strategy to better attack theirs. We spend the same amount of time on ice working on it as we did with our original systems early in the year.

As for actual time spent, we probably spent an average of thirty minutes every day on the setups, and often we would spend more like forty five minutes, depending on how easily it clicked on that day.

[sloth2946]

Now the question is, inadequatecy as a player/goalie or a coach?

I found the best way to work and learn what is coming down the pike at you from the other team is a combination of chalk talk, playing as a defenseman, and video review of the situations.

The video and chalk talk really are purely conceptual and hard for younger players to get a grasp of. But getting out of the tunnel vision that being a goalie provides and getting involved in the play out of the net really helps more so.

Like most things it is about breeding awareness, like having your head on a swivel in when the puck is in the zone as opposed to having tunnel vision on the puck and finding the dangerous players on the ice.

It is a matter of breaking the linear nature of goalies. Most of which have been taught to worry about the puck and stopping it and nothing further about how they can affect the game positively through things other than making saves.

[TartanBill]

I wouldn't worry about systems at all until the kids are older. They need as much time as possible on skills, individual tactics, and small group tactics. Systems may help you win, but they won't develop players and even at the high school level, systems encourage play by rote rather than the 3 Rs, recognize-read-react.

They aren't ready intellectually.

[madgoaieskillz0]

Hockey at the high school varsity level could not be played without at least guidelines for a forecheck and breakout because then it would not be any different from youth hockey. At least in my area, the jump from house and JV to varsity is a huge step in maturity and responsibility on and off the ice, and the ability to follow systems seems to follow in that trend. Playing by what a coach wants to see shows more maturity than doing your own thing as you would on a pond. Knowing what to do on the forecheck will gain you posession and allow you to exercise creativity in the offensive zone, but you need to at least know how to get possession before you can get creative.

Same thing with the breakout: no posession in the offensive zone can happen if you don't bring the puck from your zone to the offensive zone, and thats where creativity happens.

As for not being ready intellectually, if you're old enough to drive a car (or get drafted (seniors)) I think you can handle playing a system. it's not an individual game, and systems create team play.

[CubanPuckstoppr]

Originally Posted by sloth2946

Now the question is, inadequatecy as a player/goalie or a coach?

Inadequate as to what we’ve exposed 14 year old players to before they take a big leap. To me there are two big leaps at the youth level, Squirt to PeeWee, for the obvious no-check to check environment, which really doesn’t have a major impact on goalies. The second big leap is from Bantam to High School, or Midget 18-U, like Madgaolieskillz had said it is a big leap. Since players split off, to High School as well as our program we don’t have a Midget 16-U program, which would make the leap much less dramatic.

Originally Posted by TartanBill

I wouldn't worry about systems at all until the kids are older. They need as much time as possible on skills, individual tactics, and small group tactics. Systems may help you win, but they won't develop players and even at the high school level, systems encourage play by rote rather than the 3 Rs, recognize-read-react.

They aren't ready intellectually.

TartanBill’s response validates my belief that skills based youth programs are best for player development, and I don’t believe that half ice practices and systems were meant for each other. Don Lucia stated in the video that was posted on YouTube last season that 75% of his team’s time is spent on skills development. By "systems" I'm getting at man-advantage and creating space, or man short and occupying space as opposed to a "Devils trap system" or "Left Wing Lock" etc, etc.


Some of the kids that have moved up will say, “seeing the big picture was one of the biggest transitions I had to make.” CoachJester’s thread where he speaks of HS goalies recognizing systems compared to the typical “1 man on”, or “2 men on” that a goalie communicates, combined with this being the time of year when I try to evaluate how well we coached, as a function of are kids prepared for the next level, has prompted the evaluation (albeit an online evaluation) of our program.

[sloth2946]

Originally Posted by CubanPuckstoppr

Inadequate as to what we’ve exposed 14 year old players to before they take a big leap. To me there are two big leaps at the youth level, Squirt to PeeWee, for the obvious no-check to check environment, which really doesn’t have a major impact on goalies. The second big leap is from Bantam to High School, or Midget 18-U, like Madgaolieskillz had said it is a big leap. Since players split off, to High School as well as our program we don’t have a Midget 16-U program, which would make the leap much less dramatic.



TartanBill’s response validates my belief that skills based youth programs are best for player development, and I don’t believe that half ice practices and systems were meant for each other. Don Lucia stated in the video that was posted on YouTube last season that 75% of his team’s time is spent on skills development. By "systems" I'm getting at man-advantage and creating space, or man short and occupying space as opposed to a "Devils trap system" or "Left Wing Lock" etc, etc.


Some of the kids that have moved up will say, “seeing the big picture was one of the biggest transitions I had to make.” CoachJester’s thread where he speaks of HS goalies recognizing systems compared to the typical “1 man on”, or “2 men on” that a goalie communicates, combined with this being the time of year when I try to evaluate how well we coached, as a function of are kids prepared for the next level, has prompted the evaluation (albeit an online evaluation) of our program.

Well you and just about everyone else knows how I feel about teaching systems vs. skills....just wont go near a systems deal.