Frequently asked questions

BenchIQ is a coaching platform for drawing and animating drills on a true-to-scale rink, sequencing them into practice plans, analyzing game video, and running your team — schedule, roster, stats, messaging and a shared drill library — in one place.

The drill editor →The team hub →

Yes. The drill editor is free to try without an account — open it and start drawing. Creating an account is also free, and your first subscription starts with 7 days of Pro free, no card required.

Try the editor →

Open the editor, draw your players and movement lines on the rink, then add steps — each step is a frame of the animation, and BenchIQ animates the movement between them. The three-minute video below walks through it end to end.

Open the editor →

Yes — BenchIQ runs in the browser on desktop, iPad and phones, and you can install it to your home screen like an app. Coaches typically draw on desktop or iPad and run practices from a phone or tablet at the rink.

Hockey is the flagship — the full platform is built around it. Football is available with its own field, tools and marketing pages, and more sports are on the roadmap.

BenchIQ for football →

Yes — the BenchIQ YouTube channel has how-to videos covering drill animation, editor setup and the video analysis tools, with more added regularly. The written coaching guides cover practice planning and teaching concepts.

BenchIQ on YouTube →Coaching guides →

Basic covers drawing, animating and saving drills and plans for one team. Pro adds video analysis, playbooks, recordings and narrated exports, more teams, and the Ask BenchIQ AI assistant. Athlete+ is a separate athlete-side plan: the film vault, highlight reels, and IQ Coach — AI skating analysis, training plans and daily hockey-IQ quizzes. Current prices and full feature lists live on the pricing page.

See pricing →

Your first-ever subscription automatically starts with a 7-day free Pro trial — no card needed. If you don't continue, nothing is charged.

Start with Pro free →

Not for running the team. An invited coach can post to the feed, manage the roster and schedule, enter stats and run games at no cost. A paid plan applies to authoring — creating and saving drills, plans and video content of their own. Clubs can also sponsor seats so assistants get full authoring.

Club seats →

No. Athlete and family accounts are free — joining a team, seeing the schedule, watching drills and following stats costs nothing. Athlete+ is an optional upgrade for athletes who want highlight reels, their own development vault, and IQ Coach — AI skating analysis and training tools.

For athletes →

From your Account page, open the subscription section — plan changes and cancellation go through the secure billing portal, and cancelling keeps your access through the end of the paid period.

Your account →

Enter it at benchiq.hockey/redeem while signed in. Codes apply their plan to your account immediately; club codes also join you to the club.

Redeem a code →

A viewer is the follow-along role — built for extended family and fans. Viewers see the team feed, schedule, roster basics, lines and stats, and can chat in Team Talk, react and RSVP. They can't edit anything, see staff-only coaching notes, or open team settings. The shareable team join code adds people as viewers.

Everything needed to run the team: roster, schedule, games and stats, lineups, all feed channels including staff notes, team settings and invites. Only the owner can transfer ownership or archive the team. Authoring drills and plans of their own requires the coach's own plan or a club-sponsored seat.

Owner and coach are staff with full team management. Guardians follow and manage their own athlete. Players (athletes) have their own login tied to their roster spot. Viewers follow along read-mostly. You can also define custom roles — for example a team manager who can manage the schedule but not coaching content.

Invite links expire after 30 days if they aren't used — but once someone accepts, their membership never expires. People stay on your team until you remove them. The reusable team join code doesn't expire; you can rotate it any time from settings.

In Team settings → Members, use the remove button next to their name. Coaches can remove non-owner members; owners can remove anyone. Removing a guardian or athlete only removes their team access — their connection to their own athlete's page is family data and stays intact.

Yes — plans include a team allowance (more on Pro), and you switch between teams from the team picker. Clubs can bring many teams under one club workspace with a shared drill library.

Plan limits →

For minors, the coach invites a parent or guardian, who accepts with consent and can then add the athlete's own login. Adult athletes (18+) can be invited directly from team settings — they confirm they're of age when accepting. There's also a self-serve athlete space that needs no team at all.

Accepting a guardian invite includes explicit consent for your athlete to receive and view coach media (video and images) in the team space. Consent is recorded, and it's required — the invite can't be accepted without it.

Sensitive profile fields such as birth date, height and weight default to staff-only visibility, and what's shared with the wider team is controlled field by field. Public athlete profiles are entirely opt-in and always a family decision — team staff can never publish an athlete's profile.

Privacy policy →

No. BenchIQ has one central athlete identity, so an athlete on a club team and a spring team keeps one page, one development history and one stat trail across teams and seasons. When you join a second team, BenchIQ offers to link them.

Their schedule, assigned drills and plans shared with them, their stats and progress tracking, goals, and coach feedback — plus fitness and marketplace features free of charge. Athlete+ adds highlight reels, an own-your-story vault that follows them (not the team), and the IQ Coach tab.

For athletes →

IQ Coach is the Athlete+ AI tab on the athlete's page: AI skating analysis from a phone clip (10 a month — a scored breakdown, replay and progress trends), training plans and season reports grounded in the athlete's own data, the Hockey IQ Daily 5 quiz with a knowledge report, plus game-day fueling timelines and mindset routines. Everything is age-appropriate by design, and guardians can always review the full history. Coach-shared analysis replays in the team feed are free for every family — the full report and self-serve analyses are the Athlete+ part.

For athletes →

Each drill is a series of steps. You place players and draw movement lines in one step, add the next step, and BenchIQ animates the transition — pucks ride passes, players follow their routes. Export it as an animated video or a printable drill card.

Yes — the toolbar can dock to any edge, run slim or full, and the steps panel can sit at the side or bottom. Your layout is remembered on your device, so the editor opens set up your way every time.

Upload a clip and it becomes the drill background: frame-by-frame playback and slow motion, drawing and telestration that auto-clears as the clip plays, markers, trimming, spotlight tracking, split-screen comparison of two clips, AI skeleton tracking, and angle and distance measurement tools that can pin to a skater's joints and update live during playback.

Video analysis →

Two ways. Share specific moments: build a playlist from the tags (a line's shifts, every power play, one player's touches) and press Share… — post it to the team feed, send it to specific players, or make a public link; shared film lands on each athlete's page with a notification. Or open the Film room itself: Team → Settings → Film sets a scope for athletes, families and viewers — from shared clips only, through their own athlete's clips, up to published games with tags, filters and comments. Each game then has a Published to team / Hidden select in the Film room, and you can keep games staff-only until you mark tagging complete. Scouting film is never visible to members.

Film room →

Post a drill to the team feed, share it to specific athletes, publish into your club's shared library, or copy a public share link that anyone can open. Practice plans print as run sheets for your assistants, and drills export as cards or animated video.

Yes — the Record button captures the drill playing on screen, with your microphone if you want narration, and saves it to your library as a video you can share with the team.

Yes. Import your existing drill files into the library, keep them organized alongside BenchIQ drills, and attach them to practice plans. AI-assisted extraction to editable BenchIQ drills is rolling out.

A club workspace that brings your teams together: coach seats you assign and reassign, a shared club drill library so every bench teaches the same systems, club announcements and email, insights across teams, and online registration. Seats are pay-as-you-grow — add them as you add coaches.

BenchIQ for clubs →

There's no monthly software fee — just a platform fee per paid registration, disclosed up front. Payments deposit directly into your club's own bank account through a guided Stripe setup that takes about ten minutes.

Registration →

Seasons, camps, tryouts and clinics with online payment — deposits and installment plans, early-bird pricing, sibling discounts, scholarship codes, capacity limits with waitlists, add-on items, and digital waivers. Registered families flow straight into your team rosters.

Yes — new clubs start in setup mode: a safe sandbox where you configure identity, coaches, programs and emails while your public registration page stays hidden and nothing can be charged. Activate when you're ready, and buying seats or completing payout setup activates automatically.

Open Team (it lands on the Hub tab), type in the composer and press Post. You can attach a drill, plan, document or film clip from your Library, upload a photo or video, or paste a YouTube, Vimeo or Hudl link. Audience is Whole team or Specific players — a post to specific players shows on each athlete's page (their family sees it too) and nobody else's feed. Everyone except you gets a bell and a push notification.

Coaching is the channel for what the staff posts: drills, film, plans and notes. Team Talk is the team-wide channel players and families can post in — dinner plans, carpools, anything. Owners can set Team Talk, Gallery and Polls to Everyone, Staff only or Off under Team → Settings → Modules.

Team → Schedule holds games, practices and events with RSVPs and reminders. Families get a notification when something changes. Under Team → Settings → Schedule & calendar sync you can subscribe to your league's calendar feed so events import automatically, and everyone can add the team calendar to their phone with a personal feed link.

Yes. Team → Settings → Modules lists every section — Schedule, Information, Lines, Stats, Playbook, Team Talk, Gallery, Polls, Arcade — and each can be Everyone, Staff only or Off. Nothing is deleted when a section is off; switch it back on and it returns exactly as it was.

The bell in the top bar collects everything: posts, comments, schedule changes, shared film, support replies. On the phone apps, and in a browser that allows it, the same events arrive as push notifications. Account → Notifications chooses which kinds you want and whether you also get email.

The Poll button in the hub composer asks the team a question with public, anonymous or hidden results and optional multiple choice. The camera button adds photos or video to the team Gallery with a caption; members can react and comment. Both appear in the hub feed.

Library → Plans → New plan, or the Plan button on the dashboard. Give it a date and your ice time, then + Add from Library to drop in drills — yours, the team's, the club's or the BenchIQ catalog. Type minutes on each card; the clock shows what's left. Print gives bench cards with the diagrams, Present runs the plan full-screen at the rink, and coaches on the team can co-edit it.

Guide: Plan your first practice →

The Pro assistant. In Practice builder mode you describe what the team needs — “we couldn't break out of our zone last game” — and it drafts a timed plan from your own libraries and the BenchIQ catalog, which you refine in plain language and open in the plan builder. Ask anything answers rules and scheduling questions; Stats Q&A answers from your tracked stats. Open it with Ask IQ in the top bar.

Guide: Ask BenchIQ to build a plan →

Pro includes 20 units a month. A practice plan is 1 unit, each refinement a quarter, a stats question or a rules question half a unit, reading a game sheet 1 unit, an AI game summary 1 unit. The meter under the composer shows what's left this month.

The practice builder assembles plans from drills that already exist in your libraries and the catalog, which keeps every diagram coach-made. Generating brand-new diagrams and animations is an early-access layer that BenchIQ switches on for groups of coaches as it matures; when it is on for you, the Build from selector shows + New diagrams.

Yes. Present on any plan runs it full-screen with the current drill's diagram, its clock and what's next. It works on a phone or tablet, and the plan is cached so a weak rink signal doesn't matter.

Every coach on the team opens the same plans and can edit them; changes save with the editor's name. Share sends a read-only copy to a coach outside the team by link or email, and Print or Save PDF gives bench cards.

Four ways, all from Team → Stats. + Game then Add & track live opens the one-handed bench tracker. Add from game sheet uploads the official sheet (PDF or photo) and BenchIQ reads goals, assists, penalties and goalie numbers from it. Edit stats on a game opens the grid for typing. Import CSV loads a game or a whole season from a spreadsheet. Tagging film in the Film room records stats too.

Guide: Analyze your stats →

Yes, on Pro. Attach the sheet to the game (a GameSheet PDF is best; a flat, shadow-free photo works), press Read stats, correct anything in the review screen and Apply to stats. Each read uses one Ask BenchIQ unit. Game-sheet numbers take priority over film and manual entry by default.

Open the game report and press Edit on the Play-by-play card. Every event has its period, clock, player and strength as dropdowns; change them, remove a mistake, or add an event that was missed. Totals, period splits and special teams follow immediately. A total you typed into the grid can be broken out into individual events first.

Stats can come from the game sheet, film tags and manual entry at once, and for each stat the first source in the priority order wins — game sheet, then film, then manual by default. The priority chips on a game report change it for that game; Team → Settings → Modules → Stats sets the team default and the penalty minutes your league uses.

From the penalties you tag. Each penalty opens a power-play or penalty-kill window; goals inside it count as converted or allowed. Tag opponent penalties as Against to get your power-play opportunities. Game-sheet imports use the sheet's own counts.

A dashboard you arrange yourself: Team snapshot, Goals for and against, Goals by strength, Scoring by period, Leaders, Trends, Shot map, Compare players, Development and Player spotlight. Filter by opponent, home or away, strength, period or dates, click into any card for the breakdown, and ask the stats assistant why. Analytics is a Pro feature for staff; athletes see their own numbers on their athlete page.

On a game report, Generate writes a short recap from the stats you tracked — score, who scored, special teams, goalie line — for one Ask unit. Everyone on the team sees it on the report, and you can refresh it after corrections.

Film room → pick the game → Upload game film. You can leave the page while it uploads and processes. From library attaches a video already in your Library. Add parts takes a game that came off the camera in pieces — 30-minute files or clips to trim — and plays them as one film with no re-encoding. Uploading video is part of Pro; watching shared film is free for everyone.

Guide: Upload game film →

Watch the film and press a letter at the moment: G goal, S shot, O shot on goal, V save, P penalty, F and L faceoff won or lost, H hit, T takeaway, U turnover, E and X zone entry and exit, C scoring chance, B blocked shot, D penalty drawn, M moment. Pick the player, period and strength, optionally the spot on the rink, and Add tag. Every tag is a clip with a window before and after, and for your own team it is also a stat.

Guide: Tag a game →

A saved set of clips. Type a filter — goal, #9, pp, against — and Save filter as playlist to make one that keeps growing as you tag, or tick clips and Save as playlist to hand-pick. Play all runs them back to back in the order you choose. Playlists belong to the team, so a season of one player's shifts across every game is one list.

Yes. Draw opens Pen, Arrow, Circle and Highlight in your team colours. Drawing pauses the film and the marks wipe when it plays again; Pin keeps a drawing on the clip for everyone. Record a breakdown captures the film, your drawings and your voice — with an optional coach cam — under that clip, ready to share.

Every clip has an open-in-editor arrow that loads just that moment into the editor with the full toolset: frame stepping, slow motion, angle and distance measurement, trimming, exports with your drawings, and the AI skating analysis.

Staff always see everything. Team → Settings → Film sets a scope for athletes, families and viewers — shared clips only, their own athlete's clips, published games to watch, published games with tags and filters, or with comments too. A club can set a locked default for all its teams. Scouting film is never visible to members, and you can make members lose access a number of days after a game.

Athlete page → Goals → + New goal. Templates for skaters and goalies cover season stats, skills and fitness; or start from scratch. A goal can track itself from a season stat, a fitness result, a skill rating or an AI analysis score, count your own number, or be a weekly habit with a streak. Goals are free, coaches see them automatically, and finishing one notifies the coach and family.

Guide: Create a goal →

Five hockey-IQ questions a day on the Athlete+ tab, picked for the athlete — some review, some from weaker areas, some new — graded on the spot with an explanation. A new five drops each morning; the streak forgives one missed day a month. The knowledge report underneath shows the overall score and the areas to focus on. Daily 5 is part of Athlete+.

Guide: Check your Hockey IQ →

Yes, and the first take is free: about 36 untimed questions across rules, positioning, tactics, terms, goaltending and sportsmanship, with an overall score and band at the end. Athlete+ unlocks the per-area breakdown, every answer explained, and retakes to watch the number climb. Results are the athlete's; a checkbox shares them with coaches.

Six paths on the Athlete+ tab — Rules, Positions, Tactics, Hockey terms, Goaltending, Sportsmanship — each with Fundamentals, Game Sense and Advanced levels. Every level opens with a short lesson, then practice questions with instant feedback. Get 8 of your last 10 right to clear the level. Questions match the athlete's age band, so set the date of birth on the profile.

Guide: Learn rules, positions and more →

A shareable page for scouts, tryouts and family: position, team, season history with verified stats, awards, recruiting links, a bio and the latest highlight reel playing inline. It's off by default; the athlete or a guardian turns it on under the gear icon on the athlete page, never team staff. Regenerate the link any time, or turn the page off. Part of Athlete+.

Guide: Create your prospect profile →

Save clips to the Vault first — Save to Vault on anything a coach shared, or cut your own from team film you're allowed to see. Then Athlete+ tab → Highlight reels → + New reel: title, description, pick clips in play order, caption them, Create reel. Share gives a private link anyone can watch without an account.

Nothing is deleted. The Vault, reels and the public profile lock; reactivating restores everything exactly as it was. Goals, the free assessment take, the team hub and shared film stay available.

Open the club from Dashboard → Your clubs. Club identity holds the name, abbreviation, alternative names, timezone, the public URL name, the logo (up to 1 MB) and the brand kit — colours, logo on the ice and watermarking — that every club team inherits unless it sets its own. Switch on Show the club page to members, add a description and website, and Preview as a member to see it.

Guide: Set up your club identity →

Organization → How people join: Open, Join code, Request or Invite only. Show code gives the code coaches enter at benchiq.hockey/join; with a request policy their code entry files a request you approve. Coaches can also find you in the club directory, and admins invite by email from Members with an optional seat.

Admin runs everything. Manager handles members, teams, the shared library, communications, calendar, registration and reports. Coach reads the shared library; Viewer only looks. Roles adds presets — Registrar, Communications, Publisher, Board viewer, Hockey director — or a custom set of capabilities. Admins and coaches marked Can publish put drills and plans on the club shelf.

Three ways: Teams → Add a team in the console creates one already linked; a coach links an existing team from Team → Settings → Club affiliation; or a coach picks the club when creating a team. Linked teams see the club's shared library, documents, calendar and announcements. Detach keeps the team intact; it just leaves the organization.

Yes. Organization → Member of → search and Request to join. You decide what the district may see of your teams: nothing beyond reports and communications, view, or manage. Their shared library, calendar and announcements reach your coaches either way, and you can leave at any time.

Announcements & email → New announcement. Pick the audience, then where it goes: the club page (members see an unread badge on their dashboard), email, and every club team's hub feed with push. Pin it to the top, add a button link, send a test to yourself, send now or schedule. Each one reports who read, opened and clicked. Draft with AI writes it from a sentence.

Guide: Send an announcement →

Registration & payments → Activate registration, then Set up payouts (Stripe, about ten minutes). New offering for a season, camp, tryout or clinic; + Add group for each priced program with seat limits, waitlist, sibling and early-bird discounts, add-ons, deposits and installments, session dates and questions. Attach waivers, add discount or scholarship codes, press Open and share the link or embed it on your website. Registrants are placed onto team rosters from the same screen.

Guide: Create a registration →

Athletes and families submit a game or skills clip and get a personal video breakdown back from a vetted coach — annotated video plus written notes, delivered to the athlete's own space. Pricing is shown up front per coach and paid securely online.

Browse film study →

Independent coaches who offer film study through BenchIQ — each with a public profile, sample work and ratings — plus BenchIQ's own analysts. Coaches: you can offer your own film study service and get paid through the platform.

Offer film study →

Signed in, use Help & support from the top menu — your request goes straight to our staff and replies appear in the same place. Otherwise, the contact form reaches us and we respond within one business day.

Contact us →

You do. Your drills, plans and recordings are yours; team content belongs to the team, and athlete development history belongs to the athlete and their family. Export runs as portable files and printable cards whenever you want them.

From your Account page. Your account is deactivated immediately and permanently deleted after 14 days — profile, personal data and any workspace only you were on. Team records your teammates depend on (rosters, results, film) stay with the team. Signing back in within those 14 days cancels the deletion.

Your account →

Absolutely. BenchIQ ships improvements weekly and much of the roadmap comes from coach requests — send ideas through Help & support or the contact form, and check the public roadmap to see what's coming.

The roadmap →