Category: Coaches’ Corner

ADM Coaching Education: The "Uncoaching" Approach - Part 1 - Station-Based Practices This is our 4th article on the philosophical problems with the American Development Model, or the ADM as we call it. These articles are best read in sequence, in order to have the complete context of the issues being discussed. Here are links to the previous articles: ADM: What is Our Objective? ADM: Teaching Competitive Drive - The Practice-to-Game Ratio ADM: Teaching Competitive Drive - Travel Hockey Recommendations and Ages In this article we’re going to explore ADM’s practice recommendations, as well as discuss an alarming trend that is being promoted among the USA Hockey coaches; I call it the “Un-coaching Approach.” The un-coaching approach is a philosophy that de-emphasizes the idea that a coach needs to know what…

ADM: Teaching Competitiveness - Travel Hockey Recommendations & Ages Over the past few weeks, we have been diving deep into the American Development Model, or the ADM as it has come to be known. In my mind, there is a MAJOR question that needs to be addressed if we are to give a fair assessment of the ADM: That question is “what is the objective of ADM?” Is the objective to improve our top end? (i.e. Better performance on the world stage; more NHL’ers; etc.), or is it to keep more kids in the game for longer? In a previous article I made the statement that those two objectives have vastly different courses of action. If the ADM is aiming to create a better top-end athlete, that will improve our…

What is Better for Mite Development, Cross-Ice or Full-Ice Gameplay? There's a hot debate going on in many parts of North America right now, and that is whether Mites are better off playing cross-ice or full-ice during games. This debate has grown largely out of USA Hockey's ADM recommendation of cross-ice games until Squirt. I grew up in the "full-ice world," but I've been living in the "cross-ice world" for the past 3 years with my own kids. Folks in my local organization have asked my opinion on this a number of times, and I've also received a few emails asking my opinion. Here's an example from one of our coaches in Chicago: I'm writing to get your take on the cross-ice, USA Hockey model vs the full-ice model for…