Get their minds working early. When to pass, which player needs to be covered, and for the goalie, being ready for anything.
I am sure you’ve seen it. A team takes the ice, skate a few laps and then forms two lines out of the corners, players make a pass, skate to the net, and shoot. Or, you see a line on opposite sides of the blueline, players make a pass across, skate in and shoot.
We call it the Horseshoe drill (below), and it’s not very good and we’ve encouraged all coaches to stop using it in warm-ups because it doesn’t serve much purpose other than wasting time.
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At a recent tournament, I watched some of our opponents pre-game routine that included a few rushing to the locker room just in time to get dressed, and then on the ice, a lot of standing in line and then at most sending one pass, getting one pass, and taking a shot, then back in line to do it again. The teams were quiet, no talking, and just going through the motions.
In many cases, those teams came out flat and had to find a way to quickly get themselves into the games.
Sure, these warm up drills get your kids moving a little, it gets your goalies some shots, but it’s missing such an important piece to game readiness.
In the one game my team lost that weekend, you could feel it on the ice. The game time mentality was missing before we got on the ice, but it was missing in our warm-up that day.
Not to discount our opponents’ skill that day, they played incredibly, but I know our loss in part, was due to a lack of preparedness.
What these teams lacked, and we lacked was our mental preparedness.
Being prepared begins before you even put your skates on.
Before we even step on the ice, the team meets together in a designated spot to pass around a soccer ball, and then do about 20 min of pre-game stretches, and a light workout to get the blood flowing, and more importantly, to get them acting like a team.
From there, players are allowed to stickhandle, stretch a little more, or even continue passing the ball around. Others choose to take that time to go sit in the room and get their head on straight.
Then, when we hit the ice, we are laser focused on our warm-up and using drills that get our players ready for the game.
Drills like the Horseshoe lack any decision making from the players and even the goalie. They simply exist to move the puck and get a few shots, but that’s not how a game is played, and a warm-up should bring in some mental work as well.
In our youth program, most games start with a five minute warm-up. That’s not a lot of time, so we take as much advantage of that time as possible.
A 5 Minute Plan
We start with a quick skate. A few fast laps, and they are allowed to grab a puck and even shoot on net if the goalie isn’t in there, or is signaling they are ready. Usually the goalie is stretching at this point.
Then the players quickly line-up across from each other and do about 45 seconds of passing back and forth. This helps sync them up, they mix up partners per game depending on who they are near when the captain tells them it’s time for passing.
Because we have 15 skaters, that leaves one group of 3 who take the neutral zone and work on some quick passing.
Then we jump into the drill. It’s a simple 2-on-1 that starts at the goal line. What we like about it is that the defender picks either side to pass to, so both players must be ready, and then they start to skate.
When they go into the neutral zone, they have to make a good drop pass, or if the other player isn’t keeping up to speed, adapt to the situation. When they re-enter the zone, it’s a 2-on-1, and they should be trying to pass, while the defence is making it difficult. The goalie has to be ready for any pass or shot.
This gets their minds working early. When to pass, which player needs to be covered, and for the goalie, being ready for anything.
Now, during this time, since we have 15 skaters on the ice, I don’t want them waiting in line, so they are given an option to use the neutral zone for their own warm-up routine. We only ask they try to get at least two reps in on the 2-on-1.
We have a few players jump into the neutral zone and work on stick handling, sometimes a few quick shots on the boards, and oftentimes some edge work.
This puts the player in partial control of their pre-game. We’ve all seen Sidney Crosby take a few moments to trace the golden arches on the ice during his home game warm-ups, this gives that option to the kids and a way to also clear their heads if they need a moment to get into the zone.
We then finish up with a quick half-moon shooting drill on the starting goalie, that is followed up by the team huddling up at the net and letting the captain give a few more words of encouragement before heading to the bench for puck drop.
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