Any youth coach will tell you how difficult it is to keep young players engaged and focused during a practice or game. Keeping your coaching style fresh can be a challenge in any sport. Many of you are volunteers and can only dedicate so much time each week to devising new lessons and drills for your players. If you are able to keep your coaching style fresh, it will be highly rewarding to you and your players.
To hold the attention of our youth these days we have to battle with things like social media and cell phones. It doesn’t matter if you are a parent, a teacher, or a coach, capturing the focus of these kids is no easy task. So how can you keep your coaching style fresh? Let’s take a look at a few methods coaches around the world are using to keep their players on task.
Have a Theme or Focus for Each Practice
This can be as simple as ‘passing’ or ‘shooting’, but having that theme for your practices can really help your players focus. For younger players, having a practice without a focus can feel disjointed and unorganized. The drills become sloppy and you will find that players simply are not learning anything no matter how you try to coach them.
Introduce the theme for the next practice at the end of each session. Why? It provides a built-in structure that your players can look forward to. Rather than showing up on the ice and waiting to be given instructions, these players will already know what they will be working on before they even arrive at the rink. Adding that theme or focus can really provide a foundation for each practice and help your players stay invested!
Start Your Practice Before You Hit the Ice
What better time to get your team’s attention than when they are getting dressed before hitting the ice? Start your practice on dry land and get some team warmups going. Have a different player lead the stretching or warm-up sessions before the practice even starts. This is a great way to get everyone on the same page and build team chemistry and bonding.
Once the practice hits the ice, anything can happen, especially with kids. We all know how exciting it is for these young players to skate around with their friends. If you can gain their focus before stepping onto the ice, then you will likely have an easier time holding their attention when providing instructions throughout the practice.
Have Some Fun Out There
This might be the simplest message that needs to be reiterated to coaches of young players: just have fun out there. After all, it is the reason why they are all there! Sure it is a great way to get exercise and learn about team sports, but at the end of the day, hockey is all about having fun with your friends and teammates. As a youth hockey coach, you should never lose sight of that fact.
What does fun look like for your team? Well, as a coach that is something you need to pick up on. Do your players enjoy a certain drill more than others? Do they like to have competitions or scrimmages at the end of practice? If you ever see the energy level or attention spans start to wane, pull out a popular drill or break into an impromptu scrimmage. This will help bring that energy level of your players right back up and result in a much more engaging practice.
Relate to Your Players
Do you know what your players are watching or doing? In every era, kids have watched their heroes on the ice and tried to emulate what they do. It doesn’t matter if it was on Hockey Night in Canada or on YouTube, kids are always trying to do what their favourite players are doing. As a coach, how can you take advantage of this?
This is where paying attention to your players comes in handy. If they are all trying to do a certain move they saw on TV, then work that into your practice! Have all your players try to accomplish a penalty shot through their legs or the “Michigan” wrap-around move. Not only will this engage your players but it will provide some true opportunities for skill development. Plus it also adds some fun and entertainment to your practices! You even get some bonus points if you can manage to pull the move off yourself! That will really impress your players so you might want to start practicing on your own before trying it at practice!
Give Your Players Homework
Seriously? Homework? We are not talking about actual homework assignments like they would get for math class. If you can provide some extra skill-building tasks that your players can do at home, they will be more than happy to show you when they get to practice. Add in some friendly competition or even prizes for which players can master the skill the best. This type of off-ice development helps to establish good habits in the offseason as well. Even if it is just practicing their stickhandling or working on their shot, you might be surprised at how much work they can put into their skills away from the rink.
To execute this strategy, you might require a little bit of help from the parents. Communicating with the parents is always a strong move from the coach of any youth sports team. This provides them with insight into what their children are working on at practice and it also helps them to get involved in assisting the kids at home. This is a great way to build team chemistry and get all of your players, and their parents, on the same page!
