The Michigan Tech 1 on 1 Drill is fantastic for working gap control, passing, agility skating, and many other skills!

This is one of my favorite 1 on 1 drills because you can use it to work on so many different skills. Make sure your forwards swing fairly deep into the zone to receive the breakout pass. This will allow the opposing defenseman time to close the gap properly and play the 1 on 1 the way he or she should in a game.

Also, make sure your defensemen get outside the blue line… that gap MUST be closed, and the defensemen need to be able to get their speed up quickly after the pivot.

Enjoy!

CLICK HERE for a PDF of the Michigan Tech 1 on 1 Drill

Technorati Tags: Agility, Defenseman, Defensemen, Forwards, Game, Gap, Michigan Tech, Pdf, Pivot

One of my favorite Hockey Body Checking Drills to work on body positioning and angling

Remember, as you progress into hockey body checking drills, to stress that the purpose of body checking in hockey is to separate the man from the puck. To do this effectively, players need a strong base in the following areas:

1. “Raw” Skating Ability
2. Agility
3. Body Positioning (Angling, Gap Control, etc…)
4. Stick Positioning
5. Make the Hit

This video shows a simple drill to work on angling with your players. As always, click here for a printout to bring with you to the rink.

Cheers!

Technorati Tags: Agility, Angling, battle drills, Body Positioning, Cheers, Control, Figure 8, Gap, hockey body checking drills, Hockey Drills, Puck, Raw, Skating & Agility, Stress

Hey guys – sorry for such a long gap between posts! I’ve been really busy this summer running hockey camps, going to family reunions, and a bunch of other stuff…

Anyways, right now I’m at the Level 5 Coaching Clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota. So far it’s been a pretty good event – we’ve heard from a bunch of cool speakers. But the most interesting thing I heard today as about COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT… or in other words BRAIN TRAINING.

There is a company called Applied Cognitive Engineering that has developed a product called IntelliGym that consists of a complex series algorithms that can be implemented into a video game that will train your brain to react quicker to the recurring patterns in athletics. They have already developed it for basketball, and are currently designing a hockey version.

Evidently, this is the same technology the Israeli Air Force uses to train their fighter pilots… it’s kinda like a flight simulator, only it’s totally different… I know that doesn’t make much sense, but it’s hard to describe. Basically, they’ve implemented hockey patterns into a video game that has nothing to do with hockey… (the example they showed us was a little space ship fighting game – but the space ships moved in hockey patterns). So your brain is being trained to react more instinctively instead of intellectually, and your reaction times improve.

With the Air Force pilots, they saw a 20-40% improvement across the board… the basketball players showed similar results, and hockey is expected to do the same!

The players’ decision-making skills can be tracked, and improvement within the game can be monitored. The game gets harder and faster as the player improves…Like I said – this stuff is REALLY cool. I thought I’d share the link so you can check it out for yourselves.

http://hockey.intelligym.com/

I’ll keep you posted on what I learn tomorrow… ENJOY!

Technorati Tags: Air Force Pilots, Basketball Players, Brain Training, Coaching Clinic, Cognitive Engineering, Cognitive Performance, Family Reunions, Fighter Pilots, Fighting Game, Flight Simulator, Gap, Hey Guys, Hockey Camps, Intelligym, Israeli Air Force, Little Space, Long Gap, Performance Enhancement, Space Ship, Space Ships, St Paul Minnesota