Before you read on – this article is not meant to be critical towards guys ‘n gals who wrap a whistle around their respective necks mostly every day. More power to you, folks. But in.. a lot (not giving away my age here) of years of playing/coaching this game we call hockey, there are a couple of skills that come to mind as being neglected vs their ‘skill peers’ such as skating and shooting.
3 hockey skills that are under-taught – and a potential explanation as to why. Lets go.
Skill #1 – Off-Centre Pass Receptions
Yes, we teach and desire tape-to-tape passes, forehand-to-forehand if at all possible and especially at distance. But passes don’t always go to plan. Just like when your check engine light comes on after you just had your vehicle serviced. For the record, my check engine light has been on in my truck since a client/friend backed into me in a parking lot (2021-ish). None of the experts can figure out why it’s on. Back on topic.
It’s a hard skill to practice (picking up passes in your skates, behind you, etc). Coaches often don’t practice it because it can make practices very chaotic – pucks going everywhere, players breaking skate steels, and the like.
Picking up off-centre passes is an art form. When players give you off-centre passes in practice, consider them gifts from the Hockey Gods. I’m serious.
Skill #2 – Indirect Passes
When you play in rinks that closely resemble a matchbox, you have to know how to make passes into space… because passing lanes (at the higher levels) are few and far between. Space passing isn’t an easy concept to teach; much like angling, there are so many variables that go into indirect passes; from placement, to reading the pace of the person you’re passing to, to the angle at which you may want to use the boards to do so.
Indirect passes sometimes run players into the lines in drills, so coaches elect to go direct more often to avoid collisions (especially in a tryout where there’s a lot of people on the ice at the same time).
Skill #3 – Angling
As coaches, we always want players to work hard. But working smart is a little different.
In an effort to work hard, players often take poor angles to puck carriers because they ‘want to get there’. In an effort to get there, they aren’t necessarily thinking about the proper path. This was me as a player, too. I get it. Angling is also a really hard concept to teach because there are so many variables that must be considered when angling a puck-carrier. From how fast the puck-carrier is going, to yours + the puck carriers start points when the angling process begins, to where your support is, etc etc etc. It’s like grading an English paper vs a Math paper – in Math, there’s a right or wrong answer (in my case the answer was usually wrong), but English is a lot more subjective with a lot more variables such as punctuation, grammar, tone and the like. For the record, I preferred English over Math. Just ask my Math 1000 prof(s, cost me around $1,000 to pass that one) how much I liked Math.
One way to work on all of the above – small area games. This was an area of my coaching game that was definitely lacking until around 2022. I think that it wasn’t trendy like it is today, but I also felt that small games were a cop-out to teaching skating and skills. I was totally wrong in that approach and definitely see the value of small games in 2024. Here’s a video from our YouTube channel that has a couple of our favourite Small Area Games – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyLQIUL6Pek&t=27s
Related Media
So You’re a Forward? Learn how to skate backwards (article) – – – https://vhghockey.ca/so-youre-a-forward-learn-to-skate-backwards/
Until Next Time
AP