Limited ice to run your practice? Dan Arel has some tips for making the most of it.

I am not sure there is anything more valuable to a hockey team than ice time. And if you’re like most coaches out there, getting enough of it can be difficult. In San Diego, California, I coach at one of the state’s largest ice hockey programs that functions on a single sheet of ice. Unlike some of our neighboring cities who have multiple rinks under their ownership and even rinks with 3 or more sheets in one building, we run our program on one ice surface.

At our home rink, most teams get two hours of ice a week, on half-ice. That’s two one-hour practices a week. To some, you won’t even wince at that, for others, you can’t imagine running a practice like this. Yet, I have found that it works perfectly well and everything we need to teach our players can be done on this surface.

How do I run a successful and development-based practice on half-ice for an hour at a time?

Time Management

I don’t want my players stepping on the ice and wasting a single minute. That means we limit the amount of time we have kids skate in and listen to a coach talk or watch anyone draw on a white board. Of course, this happens from time to time because you need to address something going wrong or need to draw up something new on the fly, but we limit this as much as possible.

To do this, you first need a plan before you go out on what your practice will look like. That means things like groups or jersey colors should be decided and communicated before practice. Either a posting in the locker room or a team email. 

It also means building breaks into your practice plan, so time isn’t wasted waiting for kids to get water, fix their gear, or anything else they need. When the whistle blows, the 30-60 second break between drills is their time to get themselves ready.

We also do not spend time practicing things on the ice we can practice off the ice. Our rink is fortunate enough to have an outdoor synthetic ice sheet (Southern California hockey has some perks), but any outdoor space will do. While we don’t have kids skating on it, we do have a weekly session before practice in which we can practice passing, shooting, stick handling, or go over positioning, or strategy with them.

This means we can utilize our ice time to run drills that will incorporate those skills, but we don’t have to pause and focus on tape to tape passing (at least not as often).

Station Based Drills

Most of our practice is done in a station-based setting. We do tend to start with a half-ice drill such as skating, or various break-in drills that allow players to run simulations of a game-like scenario, but keep a good number of skaters always moving. A drill such as Moog Shooting, or a 3 on 2 zone entry.

This drill forces the puck carrier to pick one of two passes, or dump the puck in. The other two forwards find open ice to generate a scoring chance, while defense works to gain possession and end the play.

A half-ice drill is kept short, usually around 10 min before we split into 3 stations for the next 30 to 35 min. Our stations are set up four to five skaters per station, and drills that focus on skill development such as skating, edge work, or simply skating with a puck in various forms. Then a battle station which will often be a two on two or similar setup in which the players must first achieve possession and then activate (either carry the puck behind the goal line and back out or pass to the point).

The battle drill needs to be as game-like as possible. Keeping it in the small area forces quick decision making. The rules can be changed and modified to keep their decisions changing as the drill becomes harder.

The third station is a technique-based station such as learning puck protection, or a defensive drill to force players to watch the body instead of the puck. Sometimes this can be a shooting station where they work on one-timers or quick releases.

Generally, the stations run about 10 to 12 min with only about 30 seconds between changing stations for a quick sip of water and then we get moving again. 

With only four to five skaters in each station, they are moving constantly and waiting in line is rare and limited. Just enough time to catch your breath and go again. This allows a lot of repetition in the drills, and with so few kids it allows a chance to modify elements quickly if the drill is too hard, too easy, or just needs a modification to keep it engaging for the full 10 min.

Don’t forget to make sure drills are properly incorporating your goalie. If you know a drill will not, plan ahead so that you have something ready for your goalie to get just as much out of practice as your forwards and defense.

With a lot of debate around focusing on individual skill development versus team development and strategies, we have created a practice plan that works on all of them. We believe this creates a well-rounded player who has the individual skill needed to continue their personal growth, but in turn, we don’t take the ice for a game and see everyone try to be the hero. 

After each group has participated in a station, we go back to a half-ice drill to close out practice. We usually try to keep this one as fun as possible. Maybe a cross ice 3 on 3 scrimmage, or a game we like to call 3 on the Boards.

In this game, you play 3 on 3 hockey with one net, one team is offense, and one is defense. The object is for offense to score, or for defense to get possession and pass it to their 3 forwards waiting on the boards. If they complete the pass, the 3 players on the boards become offense, the current defense skates off, and the 3 previous forwards now play defense. At that time, 3 new players come down the boards and wait for the defense to make a pass to them.

If time allows, we may add a quick shootout, or simply a half moon drill to throw some additional shots on net and rally around the goalie before wrapping up the skate.

Keep it simple

Mentioned earlier is not spending a lot of time drawing up drills on the ice. Another step we take to ensure practice runs quickly is to have a set number of drills we generally run, teach them, give them memorable names (you can even let the team name them).

We have about 8 practices a month, and we cycle through about 3 different drills in each station in that time. This way when the kids get on the ice, we name a drill, and they know it. This doesn’t mean we don’t modify them and add new elements to build on them, but it means we don’t spend a lot of time explaining.

This also doesn’t mean we don’t introduce new drills; we just don’t do this every week or every practice. I have witnessed a lot of coaches bring the whiteboard out for every practice and they end up spending more time explaining a drill than they do running it. When we introduce a new drill, we then take some time to make sure we run it often that it’s ingrained and then becomes part of our drill cycle. 

Lastly, we don’t make the drills complicated. We focus mainly on game-like scenarios that don’t have a lot of cones or tires. We have a specific goal we want the kids to accomplish and then a few rules in which they must operate. This forces the decision making and not a robot drill that is “skate here, turn, skate here, turn, skate here and shoot.” Instead, the goal is to get a shot on net, but they must make a specific pass to do that, but to make that pass, they must create time and space. How do they do that in a small, confined area?

Using these guidelines to run practice, we have found our players developing and picking up the skills necessary to compete at the level of play in their divisions. We’ve faced parents again and again who have insisted full ice is necessary to learn breakouts, break-ins, or other strategies that we have been able to teach with half ice and through station-based drills.

I believe this is because learning is done through steps and by breaking down each process, the players develop a more fundamental understanding of each process which leads to a better understanding of the game.