Q: How important is the game-day experience at 8U?
A: Creating an exciting 8U game-day experience is very important, mostly for the sake of fun, but also for development, too.
When players graduate from learn-to-play levels to the 8U level, great effort should be given to creating an organized, exciting and well-structured game-day experience. This will not only provide a progression of play and competition for the players, it will also provide an environment that looks much like the one they see on television, with hard-board dividers used to form a separate and well-defined game surface.
Using intermediate nets, with goalies, will also help provide the desired progression of play, keeping the game age-appropriate while also delivering a heightened level of competition, excitement and fun.
The off-ice ambiance is important, too. Playing music during the warm-up and announcing goal scorers over the speakers are great ways to provide a special feel to the game experience.
Ultimately, game-day is what we make it – and we recommend making it great!
Some additional points to take into consideration:
The author, Bob Mancini, is a longtime hockey coach and player-development expert. His experience includes two seasons in the NHL as an Edmonton Oilers development coach and more than a decade as a head coach in the NCAA Division I and OHL ranks.
Tag(s): Q&A Articles