This is the second post in a series about how to create hockey highlight videos to help with your player’s recruiting process.
#1 How to Create Player Videos for Recruiting
#3 Sourcing Game Footage for Highlight Reels
#4 How to Edit Video for Recruiting Highlight Reels
#5 Where to Post Your Recruiting Highlight Reels
Having talked to almost 40 Division I women’s hockey coaches, this is the feedback I’ve received on different types of video compilations:
1. Highlight videos
There is nothing wrong with putting together clips of the best offensive and/or defensive plays a skater has made throughout the season. For goalies, it would be great saves from real games (not practice). While coaches know that whatever is in a highlight reel is not representative of how any player plays for a full game, highlight clips show off how you can play when you are at your best. Keep in mind that coaches only get snapshots of a player when they watch live or on video, and unless you are a superstar or they get lucky, it is unlikely coaches be watching those key highlight moments. Whatever the position of the player, make sure you have at least a 2-3 minute compilation of your best moments so coaches can see what you are capable of.
2. Full Shifts for an Entire Game
This is the most important type of video coaches who are serious about recruiting you want to see. Coaches want to watch you play a full game – ideally in the least amount of time possible. Cutting a single game down to just your shifts can allow a coach to watch you play a full game in less than 20 minutes which would normally take 60-90 minutes. This is a highly efficient use of a coach’s time instead of having to sit through whistles, ice cuts and trying to figure out when you will come out on the ice. Now, obviously coaches can’t see everything they want to see –like how you behave on the bench or how you handle mistakes after a whistle, but it certainly gets them a lot closer to knowing what kind of player you are.
The only other key point on this topic, is to make sure the game you choose is against a competitive, high quality opponent (check out My Hockey Rankings for how good the opponent is), since coaches don’t really want to watch a lopsided game. An exception would be if you are a goalie getting peppered with pucks by a much better team, and you stood on your head.
3. Compilation of Game-Specific Situations
This is a nice-to-have type of video to include in your profile. For every position there are key, fundamental game situations that each player encounters every game. Putting together a very focused highlight reel of just that one situation spanning several games, really helps coaches see how consistent you are with your game. A good example is a watching a defender go back to retrieve a puck in their end while being chased by an opposing forward – how often does the D use deception (a fake) before they touch the puck?
Here are some examples of game specific situation compilations you can put together for each position:
Forwards:
- Offensive Zone entries
- Power Play
- Penalty Kill
- Breakouts
- Shots (e.g. wrist, slap, snap, one-timer)
- Breakaways
Defense:
- Defensive zone puck retrievals
- 1-on-1s
- 2-on-1s
- Passing
- Offensive production/shots
Goalies:
- 1-on-1s
- 2-on-1s
- Penalty Kill
- Penalty Shots/Shoot Outs
In the next post we will discuss how to compile all the different types of video footage you could use to create the above videos.