Video is a tool that helps coach-player communication.

Warning: *Proud coach moment ahead*

Recently I was sent film from parents of their son scoring a goal. Of course, any player scoring is exciting news, but this was especially exciting to see because it was exactly something we had worked on and talked about with the player. Not even a month earlier this situation was presented in practice and the player failed to make anything of it.

Let’s dive into how we took practice failure and turned it into game success.

Power of video in practice

Athletic expressions are feel-based, while coaching is visually based. Ask a player to try something for the first time and then ask them about it. They will tell you what that felt like to them. As a coach, you will talk about what it looked like. There is a disconnect between player and coach.

Therefore we need to be able to find a medium that helps bridge the gap. For that, video is a great tool and something that is being used more and more often at all levels.

Before diving into the process, let’s take a look at the goal (our goal scorer, #14, starts in the bottom right of the video):

He does a great job supporting the play, attacking the net, and has a great shooting technique to pop the goalie’s water bottle. Awesome.

Coachless drills

A key aspect of increasing your coaching effectiveness is allowing yourself to take a step back and observe.

By creating drills that do not require your involvement or simply involve an assistant coach, you allow yourself freedom to apply yourself in more valuable coaching avenues. While it feels great to dump in pucks and make passes, that involvement takes away from your most valuable functions. In this example I’m talking about the ability to film in real time.

Consciously creating your drills to eliminate coaches is highly valuable. There are many examples of what this could look like. Here is just one example (2v2 continuous) where the forwards cross in the centre circle and attack the defence. Once the defence wins possession, they pass to the forwards at the blue line. Those forwards cross and attack the old forwards that became the Defence once they lost possession.

No coach is required. If a goal is scored, the new forwards grab a puck from the cache and continue the drill.

Going deeper

Why did we choose to train a down low situational opportunity?

1. First, point shots are an issue and generally should be avoided.
2. Second, we wanted to focus on the areas of the ice that generate sustainable chances and create offence.
3. Third, we noticed in our video preparation from game film that we struggled with efficiency in that area.

From analytics, it’s known that passes and plays from down low are more valuable. Increasing those success rates is critical for producing consistent offence. Here is an example of an analytical graphic from Daniel Weinberger:

Practice

Prior to scoring the goal, let’s take a look at what practice looked like. Follow the black jersey with white + maroon candy-cane socks. He will be on the left of the screen to start.

Yikes.

Twice he got into that same corner support spot.

1. First time, he drew in the defender that opened up the backside.
2. Second time, he got the puck off the cycle and failed to attack the net.

Since I was able to pull out my iPad and film the drill, we were able to review both plays while they were still fresh on his mind. We were able to show him the video and discussed what he saw and our coaching point.

As you heard on the video, our focus was to attack the net off that situation in order to put the defenders and goalie into compromising spots. Practice film was a perfect example of that and really drove it home that there was an opportunity to be had in those situations.

Here is the goal again, the pre-shot movement is the same as in practice. This time he took what he learned and made a better offensive decision by attacking the net.

He was rewarded with a great goal (our goal scorer, #14, starts in the bottom right of the video):

The next weekend, he scored another goal off the same situation again. Players taking failure in practice, learning from that failure to improve, and then succeeding in a game is a coach’s dream.

For me it was isolating opportunities, designing coachless drills, filming practice, and having a two-way conversation with players in order to best transfer practice into the games. How can you do this with your own group?