The word “tactics” has become “a puzzlement.” It’s misconstrued, abused, sometimes ignored, and suffers from exaggerated importance. It’s over-used, under-used, poorly explained, and as with so many things in minor hockey, has a one-size-fits-all definition.
Now if you were asked whether or not you’d want your players to learn how to think on the ice, you’d jump on it. Of course, all coaches want their players to think. Imagine a team of kids who can anticipate and force the opposition to do what it doesn’t want or is not prepared to do. What fun to have youngsters who understand how to apply their own incomplete skill sets to some fundamental principles of what the game entails. This isn’t fantasy. It can be done.
Let’s back up a bit first. From their first steps on the ice, children make decisions. They determine whether or not ice is a surface on which they feel confident traveling. They choose to go at a speed conducive to their skill and if falling on this cold surface is in some way connected. If it is, does it hurt much? When we engulf them in hockey equipment and expect them to propel an object around the ice, everything is more complicated. Do I share the puck? Why? If I don’t have one, how do I get one? If I smack it really hard and miss, will I hurt myself? Do I really want to go around those pylons, because every time I cross my feet with these pads on, I corkscrew my way down to the ice? Has Mom got my chocolate milk?
The physical application of these thoughts are what coaches see as skills. But every skill requires a decision. The more skills a child has and the more competent they become at them, the more decisions they can make and, in fact, are forced to make. The seven year old in a first year hockey team environment will not need to make as many or as complex decisions as the 12 year old playing on even a recreational level team. Furthermore, the younger child’s decision are simpler, more closely related to the beginning skater mentioned earlier. There are just too many other things for the seven year old to figure out before the multi-tasking problems associated with learning a game.
As we know, children pass through a series of stages in acquiring new skills. But these same stages apply to tactics as well. That’s because tactics are mental skills. They are accomplished in consort with physical ones and neither acting alone would produce much of a hockey player. Coaches of younger children seem to want to teach tactics early on, understanding their importance to the game. Yet they misapply them. Some coaches are steadfast “technical teachers” and thus forego any tactical instruction. These coaches might not see that any decision-making by kids is a form of tactics.
For instance, to get kids to think on the ice, they need to be placed in situations where they can make decisions. This doesn’t happen by accident. Pre-determined drill routes have their place, but one can’t expect the youngsters to think when all they have to do is skate the same route repeatedly. When the coach also orders whose turn it is or when/where to stop, even more decisions are removed from the child. Hockey is a fluid game where nearly instantaneous decisions are made every moment. Coaches need to expose kids to a variety of such moments to give them a taste of the game environment. Even pure skill drills can help to accomplish this.
With a line of kids waiting to do a drill, for example, the coach instructs them to watch the player ahead. When he arrives at a certain spot on the ice, the next child starts. This forces the kids to read what’s happening and react accordingly. In other words, read and react, the very foundation of tactics. Similarly, the tendency in a passing drill is to make the next player in line be involved in the passing play. Why not alter the drill so that it’s the last player in line? When kids complete a turn in a drill and go to the end of a line, they turn off their brains. No need to think anymore. They’re done. Show them they’re not done by keeping them involved not just a while longer but also when the natural urge is to stop.
Those are simple examples of teaching tactics. They’re not the tactics from a manual or on a diagram. But they are forcing kids into thinking about their participation in an activity.
Is this limited to young ones? Not at all. In a peculiar irony, coaches of older kids often run drills with a heavy tactical bent, yet they tell the players when to go, when to stop, where to skate, how many passes to make, etc. It’s tantamount to creating a 2 on 1 attack drill from the neutral zone with restrictions:
- do one give and go pass with your partner – skate to the blueline, do a 2 foot stop, while your partner does the same, make another pass (stay onside!) – attack the defenceman from the left wing – use the drop pass play – go for the rebound – return to the next line but switch roles
The drill may be great on paper and flow nicely. But how much independent thinking are the players permitted? Is the drill about following directions or practicing the drop pass play? Can the coach’s drop pass play be developed elsewhere in the attack zone? In a game it will occur in various spots. Indeed, there is something to be said for repeating the attack in one area multiple times. However, does the coach need to stifle player creativity and thinking by having such a dogmatic approach?
The answer is not at all. Part of the game’s beauty is that it is so fluid and so many decisions need to be made almost with each stride. The more times we put kids in similar situations, the more they will learn not only to handle them but how to predict them and adapt to new ones.
The reason why we even have a tactics conundrum is because coaches seem to fear using the word. If a coach were to suggest that a LOG used with six year olds introduces tactics, he could be accused of pedagogical heresy. But consider the simple game of Tag. The kids who are “it” aren’t just chasing other kids to touch. They’re making decisions on when to chase, who can be caught, when to rest, and even how to angle properly. The players avoiding the tag need to keep their heads up and eyes open for the chasers and determine the paths that will help them escape. And if they seem doomed to be caught, some will come up with novel ways to escape.
Let’s take the example of a 1 against 1 mini game where a stick is placed on the ice as the net or target. The objective for the two players is to hit the target with a puck. Both youngsters are playing offensive and defensive positions. They are learning angling and stick checking skills in addition to the basic offensive tactics of puck protection, driving outside and others. Whether this mini game is played with little ones or teens, the tactics remain the same.
In both Tag and the 1 against 1 game, not much instruction is required. Even if the coach has done little or no teaching of formal puckhandling or turning, the kids figure it out anyway. These are examples of activities that highlight tactics (and skills) and place kids in the precise situations where they are forced to practice them without knowing they’re doing it. This is, as mentioned before, one of the secrets of good coaching: To get the players to learn and not realize they’re being taught. It’s more fun that way.
As players get older and/or better skilled, the coach needs to add elements of instruction to these kinds of activities. This makes sense. The skills toolbox has more components, confidence is greater, physical and mental maturation continues apace. The players are beyond the exploration and discovery stages of basic tactics. So the 1 against 1 drill described earlier, when used with 13 year olds, could include some body contact and application of previously taught skills such as inside/outside moves. Defenders can apply gap control, a vital tactic to learn however a difficult one to teach since it requires judgments that only develop over time.
The formal teaching of tactics has to be approached much like skills. You begin with allowing the youngsters to “play” with activities which highlight the tactic. Then as they get older and better, you build on these. As with a skills inventory, there needs to be a tactics inventory. This doesn’t mean listing the right age to teach one style of forecheck system versus another. Forechecking relies heavily on understanding gap, angling, pressure or containment, and other principles.
At what point in a season is it feasible and appropriate to introduce some of these? In what stages would you do it? How do you incorporate these ideas into skill drills or even LOGs? Which SAGs (small area games) match up with the principles you want the kids to learn?
There is no right or wrong age to present tactics. It’s a matter of how. No, faceoffs need not be taught to nine year olds. Yes, nine year olds can learn how to outnumber the opposition around the puck. No, it doesn’t matter what type of forechecking pee wees are taught so long as they understand the concepts of support and angling. No, it isn’t advantageous to have seven year olds learn to defend 1 on 1s. In fact, it’s silly. But yes, they can be put in 1 against 1 activities and experiment with being both the attacker and defender.
Learning how to play any game, even a board game like Monopoly, involves an element of tactics. The coach’s very important task then is to create a tactics continuum that overlaps with the skills one. This requires a surprising amount of planning because often simple tactics are assumed to exist and don’t need to be taught or re-enforced. The so-called tactics conundrum instead is no longer IF but how.
Next: Shrinking the rink
