ADM Kids

Q: How can we teach kids to create plays on the rush, break out of the zone and stay on-side if we aren’t playing full-ice hockey?

 A: I’m asked this question often, and my answer is “easily.” Many small-area games – in fact, almost all of them – emphasize the skills and concepts necessary to create plays in transition, execute breakouts and, with simple tools like a marker, stay on-side.

As a youth coach myself, I run my entire practice exclusively in small areas now, and my players haven’t missed a beat. They’re actually better, more skilled and more successful because of our commitment to practicing in small areas. Here’s what I’ve learned:

If a player can make quick decisions and perform his or her task in a confined area, that player will be able to do it more easily when time and space is available. It’ll actually be a less challenging environment for them. So small-area games provide a skill development benefit. Now it’s only a matter of engineering them to teach the concepts, too.

The best way to go about this is to put parameters on the players specific to the outcome you are trying to teach or emphasize. For example, the off-side small-area game, in which players must regroup behind a line and attack on-side, teaches kids how to not only stay on-side when attacking, but also how to break out, regroup, attack the zone, defend the rush and forecheck. This is a simple cross-ice game to engineer. All you need to do is use an industrial-strength marker and draw a line across the middle of the ice to serve as your attacking blue line.

There are many, many examples of small-area games that help teach and rehearse nearly every hockey concept within the structure of a single game. And they are all simple to organize, engineer and execute. There is even a new small-area game book coming soon from USA Hockey that will be divided into chapters by specific hockey concepts. Each chapter will showcase games that teach specific desired concept(s) within the game.

And if you’re still unconvinced about small-area games, watch an NHL game and track how many breakouts are identical (usually very few) and how many times a team carries the puck the full 200 feet and creates a scoring chance (almost never).

How are goals scored in today’s NHL? By making plays in small areas, winning net-front battles and attacking from the corners or behind the net. These are all things that players do repeatedly in small-area games, along with constantly honing their skating agility and quick-twitch speed. 

Ultimately, youth players don’t rise to the occasion, they fall to their level of training. So if they’re trained to be quick thinkers who can make plays in tight areas, then they’ll succeed more often in today’s game, which is very different than the one I grew up playing and watching.

If the game has changed, doesn’t it make sense that our practice methodology should change with it?