With the cost of ice time going up, many teams are sharing practice sessions, especially at the younger age groups. The need for half ice hockey drills continues to grow, and has been a highly requested topic from our readers. So, instead of just doing a video or two, I put together 9 of my favorite half ice hockey drills spanning across all levels of play… beginner to advanced. I’ve also included a printable PDF version as well as the Importable DrillDraw files, if you want to bring all this stuff to the rink with you. You’ll find the links at the bottom of this page.

Here we go!!

Quad Passing:

Players 1 and 2 execute five passes between themselves, after the fifth pass, player 1 does a give and go with player 3, combined with a one-touch pass to player 4. All players rotate as shown.

Cycle Give and Go:

Player from line 1 leaves with the puck and walks up the boards, then cycles back to player from line 2. Player from line 1 drives through the seam for a give and go pass, receives the pass from player 2, then one-touches to player 3 or 2 for a one-timer.

Figure 8 Shooting & Deflection

1. Forwards line up in corner with pucks.
2. Three defensemen across the blue line. Two have pucks, one doesn’t.

Perpetual Cycle

Coach dumps a puck in – first player goes into corner and picks up the puck, and cycles it back. A second player follows him in to pick up the cycle. After cycling it back the first player cuts across the top of the circle and drives the net – second player passes out for a one-time shot.

After the pass is made, the first player from the other line dumos it in his corner. The player who just made the pass continues up around the top of the circle, then drives into the corner to pick up the dump. He cycles back, and the player who dumped it in supports to pick up the cycle. Same thing happens again. Drill continues perpetually.

Stop & Start Shooting

Great drill for younger players. Starts and stops with a puck, plus a power turn and a shot. Make sure players face the same way with each stop. Simple, but effective!

Give and Go Shooting

1. first player passes out to point man – then attacks

2. point man bank passes back to next player in line

3. receiver executes a give and go with point man

4. point man shoots

5. player who attacked becomes new point man

Center Line Boundary 2 on 1

Set up a 2 on 1 in each side. Nobody can cross the center line. When the defender gets the puck back, he/she must pass across the line to the forwards on the other side.

Start with 2 on 1, work up to 3 on 2.

Figure 8 Angling

1. Players start facing each other on dot

2. ‘F’ picks up a puck and drives wide

3. ‘D’ skates around cones as shown, then angles

4. ‘F’  has to drive around lower cone before cutting to the net

Variations: (a) take out the cone at hashmarks (b) allow forward to cut inside earlier

Larsen Give and Go

First player leaves hash mark, turns the corner and receives a pass from the next player in line. He then carries the puck around the next cone, and does a give and go with the passer (P) at the red line. After receiving the pass back from ‘P’, he does another give and go with the ‘P’ in the corner, then fires a one-timer on net.

TIP: have your players use the inside mohawk to round the turns!

There you have it!! Hopefully these come in handy for you. As always, here’s a PDF of each of these Half Ice Hockey Drills for you, and I’ve also included the DrillDraw files here as well: 9halficehockeydrills.zip

ENJOY!!

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Hockey Small Area Games: Triangle 1-Timer

This is a fast-paced, small area game drill that incorporates a lot of one-touch passes and one-timer shots. Works REALLY well with the right group of players. Encourage your players to move the puck quickly and isolate the man.

As always – Click Here for the printout.

Enjoy!

Jeremy

What’s up guys! I do a monthly coaches meeting for one of our local leagues here in Utah… We decided to try this month’s meeting online instead of having everyone spend another night at the rink. I’ve had a couple of requests to see the meeting, so I figured I’d post it here. Keep in mind, some of the stuff we’re talking about is specific to our organization, but there’s still some good discussion in here.

Enjoy!

PS – I got some of my material on the small area games stuff from Coach Nielson’s recent blog posts at http://coachnielsen.wordpress.com/ He’s got a great site, with great explanations!

Hockey Small Area Games Drills can be a great way to add competition and intensity to your practices

Try using hockey small area games drills to simulate various game situations your players will encounter. This one helps to reenforce shooting and crashing the net for rebounds, as well as odd man play and battles. As always, click here for the printout.

Enjoy!