ADM Kids

Hockey at the 12U age classification is a critical stage in which players have started to show control over fundamentals and are now looking to take their performance to a higher level.

For tips on helping them ascend across all positions – forward, defense and goalie – we consulted with Nate Leaman, the men’s hockey coach at Providence College, and Mike Ayers, former goaltending coach at USA Hockey's National Team Development Program who is now an assistant coach for Boston College’s men’s hockey team.

Here are some of their recommendations, both across the board and position-by-position:

All Players Benefit

Leaman and Ayers both stress skating refinement as the No. 1 way to for any young player at any position to elevate his or her game.

“I think the No. 1 skill for that age group should be skating,” Leaman said. “I think the game is easier for guys who are more mobile. I feel that’s always a skill coaches and players should be trying to develop at every practice. Power skating and speed skating drills are forgotten sometimes, but they should be worked on.”

Ayers says much the same about goalies.

“A huge part of it is skating. A lot of times, with the goalie position, they’ll just throw gear on and expect to develop,” he said. “To me, the skating aspect is so important at that age. Build those skating skills, because that’s the foundation you’re going to build off of from there.”

Forwards and Defense

Keeping skaters moving, whether playing forward or defense, is key to running a good practice and developing skill, Leaman says.

“You want the guys touching the puck a lot,” he says. “You don’t want guys standing in line a lot. A lot of the most efficient practices are set up into a lot of small groups – working with 4-5 guys at a time on something and another coach is doing the same.”

Working on body position and short bursts, too, are skills that transcend age groups but will continue to build the foundation for a fundamentally sound player. Some of that goes back to skating, Leaman said, and there are two drills he particularly recommends.

“One drill I really like is you put one player outside a circle and put a puck in his hand. Put one player just inside the circle. Neither player has a stick,” Leaman said. “You blow the whistle and the guy without the puck is trying to keep the guy with the puck from putting the puck on the center dot.”

This drill also helps cultivate body-checking and body-contact skills, which are key to puck possession. While body-checking is not allowed at 12U, this is a skill that should be worked on in practice at 12U to help prepare players for the next level.

This drill gets both players really moving their feet, Leaman says, while a simple game of tag is great for working on mobility.

“We do it at this level,” he said. “The guy that’s not it has to skate backwards, and the guy that’s it has to skate forward. As soon as the guy gets tagged, they have to transition. You’re working on the first three steps a lot.”

Forwards, specifically, should be working on puck handling and working in tight spaces, Leaman said. Working 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 in small areas helps in both regards.

“The better puck handler you are, the better the passer you are,” he said. “Those things go hand in hand.”

Goalies

Ayers acknowledges that a lot of young goalies don’t want to do the drills that will benefit them the most.

“Who wants to sit there and keep doing T-pushes and shuffles in the crease?” Ayers asked. “All they want to do is stop pucks, particularly kids at those ages.”

But those types of drills really are the building blocks for everything a goalie does.

“When you start getting into tracking pucks, rotations, that’s where the spectrum builds,” said Ayers. “But overall, your feet are so vital, being able to move around the crease properly and get square to pucks.”

Ayers played forward and defense growing up and didn’t switch to goalie until he was 14 years old – relatively late in the game. He went on to star at the University of New Hampshire and was chosen in the sixth round of the 2000 NHL Entry Draft by Chicago, making up for lost time by building up his skating skills and also working on another critical area of the game for goalies: mental makeup.

It can be an unforgiving position at times, and young goalies need to be growing as much mentally as they are physically, he says.

“The mindset is important,” Ayers says. “You have to be mentally tough, confident and have a little swagger. There are a lot of things that go with it.”