ADM Kids

One way to protect kids from danger is to put them inside plastic bubbles and try to keep them from ever experiencing trouble.

But that’s neither realistic nor healthy. At many points, in life and in hockey, kids will confront situations that require them to react to maintain their own safety. In those moments, they will have the best chance of thriving if they are prepared.

That’s at least some of the logic behind 6U/8U players competing on smaller ice sheets. In addition to building skill and increasing puck touches, playing cross-ice games at that level creates less space and helps young skaters learn how to both handle and initiate body contact safely.

Guy Gosselin, a player development manager for USA Hockey, says there are a number of ways to implement those ideas at the 6U/8U level.

The competitive component to teaching body contact at a young age is emphasizing the value of possessing the puck – and showing players that the main goal of body contact is to create a turnover and regain possession.

“When you're moving in a small area, we need to teach our kids how to navigate through that area,” Gosselin says. “They know that there's going to be more contact if you are playing in that small area, and that's the game today. The way the game is played today, it's a possession game and it's all about possessing the puck and regaining possession of the puck.”

The safety component of body contact has multiple angles. At 8U, Gosselin says the way coaches construct drills is important in getting the messages across.

“Do drills with other players so that they will keep their head up and not just using things that might make them look down, like cones,” Gosselin says. “We need to get that point across. You always need to keep your head up, especially when you're going toward the boards. And that's hard because of our skill sets. But that would lead into helping them become more stable on the ice.”

Still, skaters at 6U/8U are likely going to fall down – whether taking contact or not. They are still gaining the ankle flexibility to stay strong on their skates, and they are far from fully developed physically. Given that, it’s important to show skaters at that age not only how to stay as stable as possible but also how to properly fall.

“Learning how to fall is important – finding out that I've got these shin pads on and it's not going to hurt,” Gosselin says. “Again, teaching proper body positioning and athletic positioning is important. That's what you want to strive for. You want to strive for keeping your stick on the ice.”

Safety messaging is important at all ages, Gosselin says, but it is particularly important for younger skaters who are new to the small spaces that dominate hockey but don’t yet have a lifetime of hearing repeated messages about how to stay safe.

“You don’t intentionally bump somebody or hit them from behind. That's just, you know, common sense stuff but things that sometimes us adults take for granted,” Gosselin says. “Just making them aware and doing it in a way that’s not condescending is important. You talk to an 18-year-old a little bit differently than you talk to an 8-year-old, of course.”

But why teach any of this body contact stuff at 6U/8U, even when players are in small-area games, when body checking isn’t legal until 14U?

“Well, it's really important to start out from the get-go. We want our players to be strong on the ice and strong on the puck,” Gosselin says. “Even though checking comes later, we have to have this body contact awareness that it's a progression of skills.”

That progression has a lot of reinforcement along the way.

“We can't just say, OK, you're gonna go through one body contact clinic and you're set,” Gosselin says. “You utilize all these different skills that you learn along the way. Your awareness on the ice and your vision on the ice, everything comes into play. So we have a refined type of hockey player when it's time to do the full checking and a confident hockey player, which makes a huge difference.”