Everyone wants to score more goals. Teams, coaches, players, parents - scoring goals is how we win games. One issue faced by minor hockey is that a lot of the game's investors believe the final act of scoring - the last person to touch the puck - is all that matters. Kim McCullough asks her players to contribute to scoring goals 200 feet away from the opponent's net. We can attack off the breakout, come out of the zone with speed, move through the neutral zone, enter the offensive zone, and put the puck in the back of the net. It's that easy!
Deception & Pressure
In Kim's presentation at St. Andrew's College she demonstrated the fundamental habits of breaking the puck out of the zone. It starts with habits. Your feet, your stick, and your eyeballs create deception and make it difficult for an opponent to check you. This is the way out of the defensive zone - confuse the other team, deceive the pressure, and execute on the breakout. Kim's first drill was a simple retreival drill off the wall that got every player moving, and served to reinforce those habits before adding pressure.
Kim has presented in the past at TCS Live in Ann Arbour, and one of the key takeaways from that presentation was having a Make The Next Play Mentality. As Kim adds what she refers to as scripted pressure (passive pressure), the habits become more important, but more difficult to practice. That's why it's crucial to always return to the basics before progressing to full pressure.
"Let's not forget our eyes. Read that pressure, scan the ice."
Full pressure was added in Kim's second drill. Both players are charged with skating the puck inside the dot lines. It's clear to see the habits practiced with zero pressure and how they impact the final result, both along the boards and out of the zone. Kim starts to add acceleration without pressure, before adding pressure again, to reinforce those breakout habits. Either from the first turn or after adding a second cutback, the players learn how to sell false info and deception ir order to get the attack moving in the right direction.
Move the Puck
Next, Kim adds pressure in the form of a backpack player to pressure the puck retrieval before opening up for a breakout pass. It's a simple drill, but there's no script. We know that anything can happen in hockey, so we have to build habits into these sequences so players can read and react without thinking. One example of habits from Kim's third set of drills came when a player didn't shoulder check when they turned away from the play. Without those habits, and it can be as simple as shoulder checking or backpack support, the attack breaks down before it even leaves the station (the defensive zone).
"We don't throw pucks away."
In under 30 minutes, Kim progressed from picking pucks up off the boards in the neutral zone agaibnst no pressure to full pressure breakout games to create conditions that drive habits and skills required to get the puck moving in the right direction. She leaves room for coaches to add their own twist on each progression, but always maintaining the habits that make it all possible. By the end of the practice the players are just playin' hockey. Not a ton of thinking, but that's because Kim has instilled good habits with and without the puck. That's when real skill can take over.
Noteworthy Timestamps:
- 0:00 Intro
- 1:30 Weiss Off Wall Retrieval Passing Basics
- 3:05 Adding deception
- 6:10 Adding pressure
- 8:50 Breakout Retrievals 123
- 10:30 Adding pressure
- 13:38 2 on 0 progression
- 16:00 Adding more pressure
- 20:15 Easy Out - Basic Breakout Game
- 22:40 Breakout To Get Out 2v2 Game
