Hands on the ice, bring the player low as possible and out of the comfortzone

Triangle skate wit tight turn. Creat speed in tight area. Skate low whole time.

“The more they can get touches after or before practice is huge.”

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In episode #233 of the Glass and Out Podcast, we're joined by Dwayne Blais, who is a Player Development Consultant with the Detroit Red Wings, and for our money, one of the top development coaches in the world.

Blais has over 20 years of experience in the game, specifically focused on how players improve on the mechanics and habits that exist within their individual game, so that they can bring more value to their respective teams.

Check out his on-ice TCS Live presentation on Implementing Skills to Play with Pace and his Global Skills Showcase talk on Breaking Down the Skill of Deception.

Listen as he shares why kids should be carrying their own hockey bags, why playing fast is about more than just skating fast, and why the key to skill development is simply more touches.

VIDEO TIMESTAMPS:

• 0:10 Early success of Red Wings
• 2:00 Day to day job as skills coach
• 3:20 Key skills for making jump to pro hockey
• 8:15 Do we do enough to support young players?
• 12:10 Tips for improving hockey sense
• 17:00 Helping young players improve scanning
• 20:20 Playing slow is okay
• 24:30 Tips on improving passing and receiving
• 28:20 How he learned to break down skills
• 36:00 How his background in physiology helped his coaching
• 39:20 Keeping players skills in rhythm during season
• 43:00 Being in sync with players and improving skills
• 48:40 Coaches praising smaller parts of player's game
• 52:40 Explaining hockey language to players
• 57:10 Designing a skills power play practice
• 1:04:20 Playing for Steve Spott
• 1:11:30 Development tips for parents and young players

A parent's or guardian's role in the sport is as a supporter of safe play. This role is often under-emphasized. In this segment of the TIPS Series, parents are reminded of this role and are empowered to do a safety check verifying the quality and integrity of their young athlete's equipment.

Karel and Chicago Steel goalies discussing rebound details and important concepts surrounding secondary opportunities.  Prior to discussion goalies practiced rebound technique on-ice.

Making change with players, teams and organizations through intent.

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The number one reason why kids play sports is not to win – it’s because it is fun. It’s our job as leaders in minor hockey to create a safe, welcoming and positive experience for all participants, both kids and adults alike. The OMHA’s longstanding partnership with Respect Group aims to educate everyone involved in the game on the proper behaviours that are expected as well as promoting the life skills and positive benefits of minor hockey. They also support programming like the annual OMHA Essay Contest. Through the Activity Leader, Parent or Officials Program, Respect Group provides direct education to OMHA players, parents, on-ice officials and team staff.

Sheldon Kennedy won a Memorial Cup, World Junior Gold Medal and skated for three teams in his eight-year NHL career. He is best known for his courageous decision to charge his Major Junior Hockey league coach with sexual assault for the abuse he suffered over a five year period while a teenager under his care. Through this disclosure, and the important work that Sheldon continues to do, he has become an inspiration to millions around the world. He has been instrumental in bringing governments, public and private sector partners together to work collaboratively to influence policy change and improve the way child abuse is handled. He has influenced changes in Canadian law and has taken his message to the International Olympic Committee and the US Senate. Sheldon is also the Co-Founder of Respect Group, which provides empowering online abuse, bullying and harassment prevention education to sport organizations, schools and the workplace. Respect Group has currently certified over 2 million Canadians.

There are shifts in culture from generation to generation, and with that comes changes in what is considered acceptable. This applies to any setting, whether in the workplace, classroom or a minor hockey team and what appropriate behaviour looks like. What you grew up experiencing may not be the same as the kids of today.

Kennedy says it’s about stopping the cycle and developing healthy habits and tools on dealing with those behaviours as they arise.

“It’s being willing to be uncomfortable to learn a better way of how to do things today. We are going to be what we were taught, it’s what was engrained in me time and time again. Unless we dictate ourselves to be different, we will be what we were taught. To me, it’s a conscious decision to not be that.”

The intent of your actions matters, and it’s important to remember that it will take time to become the norm. We need to give people the comfort in knowing that they aren’t expected to get everything right the first time.

“Change takes time but it takes commitment. When I want to change doing something, I have to practice that change. The more I practice that change, the better I get, the more comfortable I feel. It’s about committing to that and not expecting everybody else to change with you. To me, I had to change myself and then walk the walk.”

Kennedy suggests teams and organizations create charters that promote communication, goals and accountability for players and coaches. It can be revisited and referenced throughout the season as areas of focus rise.

“It teaches us how to communicate. Now we don’t only just take the training and sit with it ourselves, but now we are learning to communicate. It teaches us that we can have guidelines around these issues as a team that we all agree upon, there’s a sense of accountability around that.”

Players can also get involved in creating the charter and to have their voice heard in what type of environment they want to create.

“It’s about being able to ask the questions and being able to listen. That’s how you build a culture. Does everybody feel that they have a voice?”

Teaching fundamental technical skills like skating, passing, and shooting and their application is often best accomplished by using Small Area Games (SAGs). Individual and group tactics like pursuit and evasion are examples of building blocks coaches can use to allow players to discover these skills while playing. This implicit manner of coaching is then supplemented by using effective feedback, questioning and coaching reinforcement.

This is something you naturally have but have to work on to rediscover the skill. Urgency takes years and years of work to master it. Then comes working on, when to use it and when to ease off the paddle. Like many others, it has taken me a while to learn and understand, and the more I work on it, the more I realize how important it is when to use it and sometimes it’s just not needed because it can be mentally and physically demanding.

Here are a few things it’s done for me over the years and more importantly put me in the environment I’ve always strived for.

Opportunities

Over time, showing urgency has put me in a position to take on bigger roles, have increased in pay, put me in a management circle multiple times even when I wasn’t a manager, got me a seat with NHL scouts, shaking hand with NHL executives/president of Hockey Operations.

My advice is, to show a sense of urgency in what you do and what you love. Be respectful but show that you care. Take pride in your approach and that comes with good habits even during times when results aren’t showing, process matters.

Relationships

This one is the most important for me and if there was one thing out of everything I say, it’s this. Your relationship skills showing urgency and putting in the effort towards your relationship with everyone you want to keep are very important. Just don’t forget about the relationship with yourself, that is important.

We tend to chase and get lost in the process. I used to believe that was a good thing until I did too much chasing and emptied my relationship with myself.

Once you have that sorted out, you should be very good at creating boundaries and restrictions to make sure it’s well-balanced.

Showing sense of urgency by building and making the effort to keep those relationships has its benefits, and the few relationships I’ve built at the highest level of hockey have taught me so much about what it’s really all about.

Longevity/Consistently

This is about being a reliable resource to those who want to be around you and want to keep you around because you have shown several times that you bring skill and value to an organization, community and culture that’s being built. You can also add trust to this as well. The more you show this consistently the easier it is to lead and when you work with young athletes in my case, they need someone consistent at showing, not only talking about it.

To finish this off I’d like to say, that this is a lifelong skill and it doesn’t come overnight. There is a process to it. It’s an instinct that needs to be worked on every day. It can influence the environment around you. It can be used to inspire, lead and direct a home, community, team, work, church, country and so much more.

If you see lack of sense of urgency, it’s an opportunity for you to step up and be the person who can set the tone. It’s a powerful tool. Learn it, use it and own it.

This small area game is loads of fun and keeps them moving. The invasion game teaches both individual and group tactics and implicitly reinforces stable skating position, the base of support and fundamental building blocks (stability, balance, body position, agility, coordination and spatial awareness). Add rules for variations like, pass number and direction, indirect passing/shooting etc. A "penalty area" using stationary closed-ended skills establishes added skill work and creates odd player situations to create even more teachable moments for your team.

Targeted Development : Development Model and MNA Developer Program