As a Manager of Player Development with Hockey Alberta, Mike McGinnis has seen a variety of new and unique concepts most people thought would never work and are now core skills being taught to kids at young ages. McGinnis dove into how to approach new concepts in hockey at TCS Live 2024.

McGinnis is, at first, a student of the game. He believes that 95% of the time new concepts are born from simple observation and studying the best players in the game. By dedicating the time and effort to really study and understand hockey and how it’s played, a coach can better plan and prepare a practice plan so the team can find areas of weakness against any team at every level. When presented with a new concept, technique, or tactic you, as a coach, need to decide whether to adopt it or oppose it based on the strengths of your team. Oppose ideas that feel a little too gimmicky or like click bait, but most importantly, if the concept does not fit the mold or structure of your team, don’t use it. That said, McGinnis strongly suggested being the early adopter of tactics that you believe can help your team play well and effectively. An example McGinnis highlighted is passing while skating backwards. For a while, defenders were taught to never pass the puck while moving backwards. Nowadays, this is a common practice that is often coached through various types of practice drills. Sharing new ideas that go against the hockey doctrine is the secret to allowing the game to grow and evolve. 

One specific topic McGinnis dove into was the reverse pinch, a concept that's relatively new in the game. McGinnis shows clips of players turning their back to pinching defenders, a concept that would have been met with great push-back in the 1990's. It demonstrates the flow of the game, a sport that's always evolving. The key is to search for new ways to find success in the small area of the game. 

Noteworthy Timestamps:

• 0:10 Experience with TCS Live
• 1:05 Ideas change people
• 2:10 Polarizing concepts
• 5:20 Playing against the pinch
• 7:20 The problems
• 8:15 Solutions
• 12:30 Off-wing vs Strongside