ADM Kids

Q: What separates the good players from the great players?

A: As your child moves along their own development pathway, at 12U, the hope is that they are acquiring a solid set of physical skills. Yet, as players progress, it’s the mental skills and hockey sense that separates the good players from the exceptional ones. The best player’s decision-making skills with and without the puck are superior to their teammates and the opponents.

So how do players improve those decision-making skills? The best answer is that their practices must resemble the game.

As players acquire physical skills, those skills need to include hockey decisions with the skill execution. This means that overly-scripted drills and/or those that don’t include actual hockey decisions have little effect when it comes to improving our players.

We see a good number of players in our country that can skate and handle the puck well; they just can’t do it at speed, under pressure, consistently, in competitive situations. So if practice doesn’t place the players in that environment, there is little chance for hockey sense to develop.