28Jul 2015 by Jeremy Weiss No Comments
What Hockey Coaches Are Looking for in a Coaching Clinic

What Hockey Coaches Are Looking for in a Coaching Clinic

Coaches' Corner, Philosophy, Useful Products
Coaching Clinic Survey Results A few days ago, we gave our coaches the chance to voice what they would like to see covered in our upcoming coaching clinic, which will be happening online in August (make sure you're on our mailing list to get more info as it is made available). The response to the survey was INCREDIBLE. We received feedback from nearly 500 coaches, and I personally read every single response. The answers were detailed, and very helpful. Here are a few samples. In the interest of privacy, I've omitted names and teams: This is what would be most beneficial to me: A very detailed description of systems (as if explaining it to the entire team), to include man-to-man d-zone coverage, neutral zone play, zone entry, setting up the offense,…
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10Jun 2015 by Jeremy Weiss 1 Comment
ADM Coaching Education: The “Uncoaching” Approach – Part 1 – Station-Based Practices

ADM Coaching Education: The “Uncoaching” Approach – Part 1 – Station-Based Practices

Coaches' Corner, Philosophy
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…
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18May 2015 by Jeremy Weiss No Comments
ADM: Teaching Competitiveness – Travel Hockey Recommendations & Ages

ADM: Teaching Competitiveness – Travel Hockey Recommendations & Ages

Coaches' Corner, Philosophy
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…
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27Apr 2015 by Jeremy Weiss 12 Comments
ADM: Teaching Competitiveness – The Practice-to-Game Ratio

ADM: Teaching Competitiveness – The Practice-to-Game Ratio

Coaches' Corner, Philosophy
ADM: Teaching Competitiveness - The Practice-to-Game Ratio In my previous article on ADM, I asked the question “what is the objective of ADM?” Is it 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 that article I made the statement that those two objectives have vastly different courses of action. You can check out the previous article here: ADM: What is Our Objective? If the ADM is aiming to create a better top-end athlete, which will improve our performance on the world stage, then we need to be teaching competitiveness from a young age. In which case, there are four aspects of ADM that I feel need revamping: Practice to Game Ratio &…
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17Apr 2015 by Jeremy Weiss 3 Comments
ADM: What is Our Objective?

ADM: What is Our Objective?

Coaches' Corner, Philosophy
ADM: What is Our Objective? I have been thinking about this series of posts for almost four years now. The reason it has taken me this long to write it, is that I wanted to be sure I understood my own position, and that I could properly articulate why I felt the way I did. I also wanted to see if my intuition turned out to be right, or if I’d be proven wrong over a few years. This will be the first in a series of articles about the ADM program. If you’re not familiar with ADM, it stands for American Development Model. In USA Hockey’s own words: “The ADM is USA Hockey’s nationwide player-development program for youth hockey associations. It’s based on age-appropriate, age-specific competition and training for boys and…
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