Coaching guides

Practical guides for hockey coaches

Practice planning, teaching progressions, small-area games, film sessions and season structure — field-tested, age-appropriate, and linked to real drills you can run this week.

Practice planning

How to plan a hockey practice (with a repeatable template)Great practices aren't invented from scratch every week — they follow a structure you trust, filled with drills chosen for what your team needs right now. Here's the template our staff sees working across youth and junior benches, and how to adapt it to your ice slot.8 min read · Read the guide →Practice planning for 8U & 10U: structure that fits the ageAn 8U practice is not a shrunken 14U practice. Attention spans are shorter, skating is the skill that unlocks every other skill, and 'systems' means learning which net we score on. The good news: the right structure for this age is also the most fun one to run.7 min read · Read the guide →Building a season plan: from first practice to playoffsWithout a season plan, every practice is planned on the drive to the rink and the team you have in February is an accident. With one — even a one-page one — each week builds on the last, systems arrive in the right order, and the stretch run finds your team peaking instead of plateauing.8 min read · Read the guide →

Player development

Small-area games: why they develop players fasterWatch a full-ice youth scrimmage and count one player's puck touches — you'll run out of patience before you run out of fingers. Shrink the ice and the same player touches the puck every few seconds, makes a decision under pressure each time, and battles because there's nowhere to hide. That's why small-area games (SAGs) have gone from novelty to the backbone of modern practice design.7 min read · Read the guide →

Systems & concepts

Teaching the breakout: a progression that sticksThe breakout is the first real 'system' most teams learn, and the most common way it's taught — five kids walked through a pattern once, then expected to run it in games — is why so many youth teams rim the puck and pray. Breakouts are reads, not choreography. Here's a progression that builds the reads.8 min read · Read the guide →

Coaching craft

How to read (and draw) hockey drill diagramsDrill diagrams are a language, and like any language they only work when both sides read the same symbols. Whether you're deciphering a drill book or drawing tomorrow's practice, here's the notation coaches everywhere recognize — and what makes a diagram instantly readable instead of a plate of spaghetti.6 min read · Read the guide →Running film sessions youth players actually enjoyFilm works at every level — but a youth film session run like a pro scout meeting bores twelve-year-olds into the ceiling tiles. The version that works is short, specific, and weighted heavily toward what went right. Here's the format, and how to make the clips feed straight back into practice.7 min read · Read the guide →

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