Scaling the Game – Small Area Games and Problem Design

Part 3 of 5 in the “Teaching Through Chaos” Series
By Coach Barry Jones. IIHF Level 3. USA Hockey Level 3


Want to teach hockey sense? Shrink the game.

Forget the whiteboard. Forget the scripted drills.
If you want your players to read, react, and figure it out, give them a slice of the game and let them go to work.

That’s what Small Area Games (SAGs) are all about.

They’re not just warm-ups. They’re not just fun.
They’re a coaching tool built on ecological principles.
A condensed version of chaos, designed for clarity.


Why Small Area Games Work

The best athletes don’t just repeat skills.
They make decisions. Under pressure. At speed. In context.

Small area games do three key things:

• Maintain perception–action coupling
• Reveal affordances in real time
• Create a safe space to fail, explore, and adapt

Instead of pulling players out of the game to work on a skill…
We scale the game down to bring the skill to the athlete.


Designing a Slice, Not a Drill

Think of a SAG as a slice of the full game,  not a stripped-down drill.

What makes it work?

• It’s scaled: smaller space, fewer players, tighter time
• It’s representative: the information and decisions reflect the real game
• It’s constrained: rules or boundaries shape behaviour without dictating it
• It’s purposeful: built to challenge a specific skill, concept, or decision loop

You’re not telling the athlete what to do.
You’re putting them in a position where they have to figure it out.

That’s what makes it learning.
That’s what makes it stick.


Affordances as Invitations to Act

Every athlete has rate limiters, the edges of their current ability.

• Could be technical. (Tight turns under pressure)
• Could be perceptual. (Reading the weak side)
• Could be physical. (Fatigue management in transition)

But instead of viewing these as obstacles, we design games that invite athletes to confront them, safely, repeatedly, and with purpose.

That’s where affordances come in.

• Affordances are the action possibilities the environment offers.
• They’re not commands. They’re invitations.
• In small area games, we shape those invitations, and guide athletes toward productive struggle.

We’re not hiding challenges.
We’re offering doors to walk through, where every read and every rep is a chance to adapt.


Design to Reveal, Not Prescribe

Here’s how that plays out in training:

• If a player avoids tight turns under pressure, design a SAG that rewards possession changes off sharp transitions.
• If scanning is a struggle, use a neutral player behind defenders that’s only visible after a shoulder check.
• If a goalie struggles with lateral tracking, build in low-to-high passing constraints that invite lateral shots.

The environment reveals the problem.
The affordance offers the action that challenges it.

And the player, through repetition and interaction, adapts.


Let the Game Be the Teacher

The magic of SAGs is that they put the problem right in front of the player, and let them wrestle with it.

No lecture. No step-by-step breakdown. Just reps with meaning.

Here’s what that can look like:

• 3v3 below the dots,  work on tight-space puck support and defensive stick detail
• 2v2 + 1 neutral, train delay decisions, and find support through movement
• Rondo-style games with defenders closing in,  sharpen scanning, deception, and speed of play
• Net-front chaos with lateral passes, challenge goalies to track, read, and adapt through perception–action coupling

I saw this firsthand with a goalie I worked with.

He was technically sound. In fact, in a traditional drill-based setting with another coach, he looked elite. Repetitive shots. Perfect form. Clean reps.

But come game day, he froze.
Late reads. Poor positioning. Low confidence.

Once I identified the rate limiters, his delayed reaction to broken plays and difficulty reading changing threats, I redesigned his reps using small area game scenarios instead of drills.

He wasn’t just facing shots.
He was making decisions.

I built sessions where rebounds, traffic, screens, and broken plays forced him to couple perception with action. No two situations looked the same, but every one asked him to read, react, and adapt.

The result?

He went from backup goalie on a state U15 team,  behind a fly-in player who had been favoured to start, to delivering a shutout in a national tournament.
That shutout helped his team go on to win gold.

That wasn’t just skill. That was ecological adaptation.
The environment taught him to think, to feel, and to trust his game in live chaos.


What Players Learn Inside the Game

In the right SAG setup, players develop:

• Awareness of space, time, and pressure
• Communication under stress
• Pattern recognition without overthinking
• Adaptability through repetition-with-variation

It’s not that they “drill” these concepts.
They live them.

And that’s how Hockey IQ grows, not from lecture, but from lived experience in game-like chaos.


Final Thought

A small area game isn’t a sideshow.
It’s a masterclass in game sense.

If you want your players to:

• Make better decisions
• Adapt faster
• Read and react under pressure

Then build them environments where those things happen naturally.

Shrink the space. Turn up the chaos.
And watch the game teach.



Next up in Part 4: “Teaching for Decision-Making, Not Just Execution.”