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Category: Women’s Hockey

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2023 Development Camp Girls Hockey Player Development Women's Hockey

The USA Hockey 2023 Girls 16/17 Camp Feedback Process – Part II

My Recommendations

Read Part I Here

Feedback is a gift.
Giving feedback is hard.

Having led performance feedback to dozens (if not hundreds) of people I’ve managed in business, I recognize it is one of the most challenging interactions to conduct in my career.  At the same time, I was taught how to take it seriously and learned many of the best practices to ensure a positive outcome from the process for both parties.  

It is pretty clear from the parent meeting at the 16/17 Girls camp (and the letter that accompanied the feedback/rating letter) that USA Hockey  wants to make no doubt that they are providing a variety of different levels of feedback for each player at the national camps. The details of this feedback were clearly explained in Part I on this topic.

And it is important to recognize that they really do care about giving feedback – because they have dedicated time and resources to the process.  I also wanted to also acknowledge that is takes a non-trivial amount of effort to provide detailed feedback to about 400 players across 4 major camps each summer.

At the same time, I’ve spent a ton of time thinking about this topic trying to figure out why almost everyone I have spoken with is disappointed with the USA Hockey Girls National Camp selection and feedback process. And here is what I came up with…

At the end of the day, the current process does not solve the unmet need of the players – which is to have actionable direction on their highest priority development areas. This is because the robustness of the feedback is not commensurate with the level of commitment and investment the players put into making, preparing and attending the camp.

And my reason for this is the following:

The feedback is too generic. For almost all the players, it’s just too simplistic/superficial without personalized examples and not actionable enough.

Here are my recommendations:

  1. Standardize a More Robust Process – The coaches should go through a training session on how the process works and what the expectations are from the coach on the process, content & delivery. All players should receive player-specific information using a common format, but with player-specific examples in the review. While the coaches should have flexibility to adapt the process to their style, each performance review (in addition to the attribute ratings mentioned in Part I) would require the feedback to include each of the following….
  2. Include Player-Specific Key Statistics (e.g. pass completion rates or turnover rates). Nothing is more powerful than data. Being able to show a player how they compared on key attributes compared to their peers makes things much clearer. This became quite evident to me in my analysis of the 16/17 Camp forwards and defenders.
  3. Support with Player-Specific Video Clips  –  showing a player exactly what they do well and how/when they make mistakes provides “hard-to-argue” credibility to the stats and the coach’s feedback. This would likely use a video analytics system like Instat/Hudl so each player’s shifts could be coded.
  4. Prioritize Key Areas to Focus On – Darryl Belfry consistently talks about High Frequency – Low Success Rate Situations.  Video and statistical analysis will surface these situations. Then a coach should be using them to focus on a limited number of these game patterns to prioritize (3-5) situations/skills for a player to work on.

These four recommendations would require a significantly greater amount of time and resources than the current effort being done at the USA Hockey girls camps. There may not be time to aggregate everything during that week.  But the feedback session does not need to occur at the camp. It can be done a week or two after the camp via a video-call.  What matters most is that the players are getting their needs met as to where to focus and improve as a player.  Ideally, there would be someone in leadership who was solely responsible for player development and not directly associated with the selections for the U18 camp or team. I know it can be done, because I have seen first-hand more robust feedback processes on the boys side at both the USA Hockey and junior hockey levels.

Final Thoughts

The best organizations focus relentlessly on their customers. One of the biggest ways to ensure these organizations are meeting the needs of their customers is to ask them for feedback. Specifically their overall satisfaction with a question like “Would you recommend [product/service] to a friend or colleague?” followed by “Why?”. In my few years interacting with USA Hockey both as a coach and a parent, I have never been asked for my feedback on the programs I’ve been been engaged with. In essence, USA Hockey has a monopoly on the national team programs so it is understandable that they may not need to be as customer-centric as an Amazon or an Apple. But, if leadership for USA Hockey female national camps wants to continuously improve their program, just like their players do, it would be great if they solicited their own feedback on areas they can improve as an organization. Who knows…maybe getting the gift of feedback on themselves may translate to improved performance on the ice?

Feel free to send feedback on our posts or Champs App to [email protected]

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2023 Coaching Girls Hockey Player Development Women's Hockey

The USA Hockey 2023 Girls 16/17 Camp Feedback Process – Part I

I have a lot of passion about feedback when it comes to hockey player development, because I think it is probably the most important factor to improve player performance.  Darryl Belfry, who is regarded as one of the best player development coaches in the world, uses actual game analysis as the primary way to provide feedback on improvement areas for players.

As the governing body of hockey in the U.S., USA Hockey understands the importance of player feedback. At the USA Hockey 16/17 Girls Camp which took place in Oxford, OH this past June, feedback was highlighted in the parent meeting as a key component of the camp.  In Part I of this post about the USA Hockey Girls Camp feedback, I wanted to focus on understanding the three levels of feedback  utilized during and after the camp.  Part II of this topic will discuss my thoughts on how effective the feedback process has been.

1. On-Ice Feedback  – During Practice and Games

Just like with their regular teams, coaches were quite consistent in talking to players individually and in groups during practices to share their thoughts on specific, tactical ways to improve a drill or situation.  Same for a player coming to the bench during one of the games after a shift – coaches would lean over to players and give advice on what adjustments could be made to improve a player effectives.  These situations are quite comfortable for all the coaches at an event like this since most were DI coaches or previous DI players.  As I mentioned in my previous post about player feedback, in-game comments are the easiest for a coach to communicate.

2. One-on-One Feedback with one of the Team Coaches

All teams had two head coaches.  On about the fourth day of week-long camp, each player had a 10-15 minute conversation with one of their coaches.  It is my understanding that most players were asked to do a self-review in anticipation of the meeting.  From talking to several parents, the coach-player conversation was then highly dependent on the coach. Some coaches were well-prepared and had video clips to show players as a way to communicate their feedback, some coaches had simple basic priorities for players to focus on while others relied on the player’s self-evaluation as the primary source of the feedback conversation.  Given the variance in feedback methods, I suspect the feedback meeting process was not highly structured by the camp organizers.

3. Letter Grade and Player Development Performance Criteria

About four weeks after the end of the 16/17 Girls Camp, my daughter received by snail mail a form letter which included an evaluation which is supposed to serve as a benchmark for a player’s performance at the camp.  This entails a letter grade and a rubric on the “Player Development Performance Criteria”.  Here are the details.

At the top of the player evaluation sheet, the players was provided a rating of A, B or C with the following explanation

“A” grade = Excellent – ranks in the top 1/3 of players at camp

“B” grade = Good – ranks in the middle 1/3 of players at camp

“C” grade = Below average – ranks in the bottom 1/3 of players at camp.

The Player Development Performance Criteria had 5 possible selections (from best to worst):

  • Excellent
  • Very Good
  • Good
  • Fair
  • Poor

Each skater then had attributes selected within two categories.  General and position-specific attributes with a selection in one of those five boxes (“X” for each attribute).  Here are those attributes:

General:

  • Makes Possession Plays (i.e. keep team on offense; limited turnovers)
  • Angling: pressure to take away time/space; dictate play with body/stick
  • Stick Positioning
  • Deception
  • Quick Transitions
  • Off-Puck Habits & Puck Support
  • Scoring Ability
  • Physicality
  • Athleticism
  • 200-Ft Player
  • Skating Ability (north/south; agility; speed)

Defenders:

  • DZone Execution First
  • Puck Retrievals
  • Good First Pass or Exit
  • Win Race Back to D-Side of Play/Net
  • Wine Board Battles
  • Deter Offensive Opportunities
  • Scan to Make Exit Play; Fast Transition to Breakout
  • Work Well with D-Partner
  • Gap Control: (North/South & East/West)

Forwards:

  • Puck Retrievals & Ability to Stay Off the Wall
  • Ability to Leave Perimeter and Gain Inside Ice
  • Owning Space with Puck
  • Scanning/Awareness of Teammates & Opponents
  • Use Teammates to Make Plays
  • Zone Entry: Ability to create depth/layers/lanes
  • Create & Maintain Offense

I don’t know the process that was used to aggregate the evaluators feedback, but am assuming they collected a populated rubric from all the evaluators for a position and then aggregated the data to take an average of the selections.  (I hope they used some online tool to aggregate this all, because there are lots of ways to simplify collecting this information).  Then I suppose this compiled data was used as the rating for each player’s Development Performance Criteria. I would then assume the average across all Development Performance Criteria was calculated and the each player was force ranked into one of the three tiers to give the letter rating of A,B or B based on which third they ranked.

Other than the rating and the rubric box selection – no other personalized information was included in the feedback. No short paragraph summary (like you would see in a student report card) from the coach or evaluators to provide additional context was provided.  

It is important to note that the ratings are based on the criteria described above.  If different criteria were used (which will be discussed in the next post), then a player’s rating might be different if those criteria were closer or further away from the capabilities of a player.

In Part II on this topic I will share my perspective on the good, the bad and the ugly of this feedback process.

Read Part II Here

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2023 Development Camp Girls Hockey Player Development Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Analyzing the USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Camp Forward Selections for the U18 Camp

USA-Hockey

The is the second analysis I have done about the selections for the USA Hockey Girls U18 Camp which took place last week. The first was about the defenders picked to go to the U18 Camp. Now that the selections of the forwards from U18 Camp to go to the Women’s Festival were announced a few days ago, it makes this analysis even more interesting because none of the top 3 point-getters from either the Girls 16/17 Camp nor the U18 Camp were selected to advance to the next stage in the process.

WHAT?

Similar to the previous post, rather than engage in a subjective discussion on who was selected, I thought it might be helpful to collect some analytical data and metrics to understand how top players performed at the 16/17 camp and compare them to a couple of the players who weren’t selected.

WHY?

When you don’t select the top 3 point-getters from either Girls 16/17 Camp or the U18 Camp, there are bound to be a lot of folks who wonder what the selection criteria is for making it to the next stage of USA Hockey. I don’t know the answer to that question. But I can analyze the video of each shift for several of the top players picked and not picked to see if there is an obvious difference between the two segments. The purpose of this post is not to say who did or did not deserve to be selected to the U18 Camp. Instead, it is to help provide perspective and context to other players and parents the types of metrics that demonstrate the level of play needed to be selected.  And ideally, individual players do their own self-analysis to see how they compare.

HOW?

I watched and coded specific attributes for every shift in all 4 games for every player in this analysis using the USA Hockey TV footage. I collected more metrics than are listed below, but I feel that the attributes shown, provide the right amount and level of data to gain an understanding of the level of play for this position. Note: Sometimes the live stream footage didn’t always focus on the area of the ice where the play was taking place, so it is very likely the odd play may have not been accounted for.

WHO?

Here is the list of the 13 players selected to go to the 18’s camp

Since I only had the time to watch 5 players – I watched 3 selected forwards plus 2 top players who weren’t selected. Those 3 forwards represented a mix of the forward selections.  I am not identifying the names of any players because singling out any individual player is not my objective.  For full transparency, in this analysis I do know the parents of one of the players.

SO WHAT?

Do I think the 5 selected were in the Top 10 forwards at the camp, almost certainly. Do I think there are 3-5 other players that could easily have been selected instead – also, almost certainly. There is no algorithm to calculate and rank the top players. I don’t know the selection criteria, so whatever they may be (whether well-structured or not) at the end of the day what matters is results. As stated in the parents meeting, the results of the last two U18 World Championships was not the result USA Hockey wanted – so we will see if the current process yields better results.

THE ANALYSIS

2023 USA Hockey Girls 16-17 Camp Analytics for Forwards Selected to Advance to the U18 Girls Camp

Note: Players 1-3 were selected to go to the U18 Girls Camp – Players 4 & 5 were not selected

Some notes on the tracked attributes:

  • Takeaways = a one-on-one situation where the player gains control of the puck from directly challenging the other player
  • Giveaways = full change of possession to the other team (e.g. a missed pass, dump in/out, rim or redirected puck)
  • OZone entries = skating across the blue line with full possession of the puck
  • Team Shots For/Against do not include shot attempts that did not reach the net. Only SOGs were included.
  • I am not including the point stats or PIMs for any player since they can already be found on the USA Hockey website
  • There were additional attributes I tracked like “faceoffs won” but they indirectly show up in other higher-order key metrics. Since not all the forwards played center, I didn’t include the faceoff attribute.  But I did want to note, that one player was very good at faceoffs while another was not.  The one that won most of their faceoffs did see that reflected in other measurement areas since many faceoff wins led to greater possession time.

OTHER THOUGHTS

  • From all the players and games I’ve watched, it seems (and it’s only natural) that really good plays are rewarded disproportionately more than their equivalent poor plays are punished (e.g. creating a “wow” scoring chance vs. causing a “wow” scoring chance for the other team). Forwards tend not to surrender many negative scoring chances unless they are somewhat negligent defensively.  So, it seems likely that creating offense is highly disproportionately weighted in player evaluation.
  • Not all players gave the same defensive effort throughout a game, whether it is being tired or laziness.  But over the course of four games, it was pretty clear who consistently tried to play a 200-foot game (vs. cheating a little defensively or taking some shortcuts).
  • Scouting and evaluating is not an exact science.  In my humble opinion, most of the scouts/coaches don’t watch any player enough to really get the full picture.  It is sampling data – and while it is directionally correct, when there are many players within a close band it is hard to discern who is absolutely the “best” player. And who you pick may vary when you are building a team for a short tournament and need different types of players. 
  • After watching over 20 hours of individual game footage, this process is somewhat exhausting. It takes a lot of work to watch and tag each type of play. I can’t imagine being a scout and trying to watch 10 skaters live on the ice throughout an entire game.  At the same time, the insights are quite valuable.  I hope that college scouts leverage Instat to watch players individual shifts (if a club/prep team uses Instat) to evaluate the full body of their work rather than just sampling one or two periods of a game during a tournament or showcase weekend. To me, it is hard to watch multiple players in a game rather than on just one player at a time.
  • Note: We are still waiting to on the written feedback and letter rating that we were told all players would receive.  If you are a player or parent from 16/17 Camp who has a received this feedback, please reach out and let me know. Update: We did receive the USA Hockey Feedback on July 27th – I will be writing up my thoughts on the feedback process in a upcoming post.
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Player Development Strength and Conditioning Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey Youth Hockey

Summer Hockey Development Plans

How I helped create a summer training plan for my kids

Since both my kids returned from school, I have been very focused on helping them figure out what to work on this summer.  Each of them has a big tryout that they need to prepare for – in addition to continued development for next season.   My kids are completely different players. One is a forward, the other defense. One is above average in size, the other is slightly under-sized. One is a lefty, the other a righty.  

After re-watching 4 or 5 games for each kid from mid-to-late season I was able to identify several key areas that they had a pattern of underperforming. But then, since I am not really a hockey coach, I needed to figure out how they could improve their performance in those areas. Specifically, I followed the methodology I previously discussed about tracking high-frequency events and success rates based on the teachings of Darryl Belfry.

I am not sure we figured out the secret sauce, but I wanted to share my research methodology and how it translated into an action plan.

For each of my kids, I chose 2 or 3 players who I knew were clearly more successful in those key areas. All of them would be considered top players at the USA Hockey national level. As a result, finding historical video from those players either on HockeyTV, LiveBarn or from the recent USA Hockey Nationals was not difficult.  Once again, I watched 3-5 games for those benchmark players to see how they handled the same key situations as my son or daughter.  What I learned was enlightening.

To provide one specific example, I watched video via HockeyTV of Caroline Harvey (Olympic medalist and recent rookie of the year at Wisconsin) way back during her time at Bishop Kearney Selects through to her games at the U18 USA Hockey Development camp in 2019. Seeing how she handled similar game situations provided excellent contrast to my daughter’s play.  The way KK could handle the puck and find time and space at that young age was truly impressive – and makes it very easy to understand why she is a generational talent.

For each player under analysis, patterns and insights emerge after 2 or 3 games. Each player is different, and I found there was at least one attribute for each player that made them special and worth emulating.

Note: this was not a one-day exercise watching all the games and collecting video snippets to review/ edit at a later time. It took several days to watch the video for each player.

I then spent time individually with my kids over the course of a few days discuss with them the areas I recommended they focus on (most of them they already knew). This included showing them video of themselves not succeeding (which they did not enjoy) and then showing them clips of the benchmarked players completing similar situations successfully.  We are still early in the summer, but both kids have been working on these areas by themselves and with their skills coaches. 

We shall see how effective this whole process is when we get to the fall, since I have no expectations that my kids will see immediate results.  But one of the key learnings for me about this whole exercise was not to depend on my kids’ team coaches for their development plans and how to implement them (as I have alluded to in a previous post about hockey development plans).

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2023 Development Camp Girls Hockey Player Development Women's Hockey

A Few Thoughts After the First Two Days of the 2023 USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Development Camp

Read Part II: More Thoughts on the 2023 USA Hockey 16/17 Girls Development Camp here

  • The new location at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio is superb. Arena is outstanding, campus is beautiful and facilities are all close to each other.  Big upgrade from St Cloud.
  • Camp seems very well organized and excellent use of technology to keep players and parents informed
  • Parent meeting with Kristen (Wright) Sagaert discussing the process of player feedback and letter grades sounded very promising. Hopefully the execution delivers on the expectations that were set.
  • Jerseys are pretty nice. Still no names on the girls jerseys, but boys 17s camp going on concurrently have them
  • Playing on NHL sized rink this year – noticeable difference in time and space for players compared to the Olympic sized rinks in St Cloud
  • Quality of hockey is a little more team oriented and a slightly higher pace than what I saw last week at the showcase in Rochester.
  • Different experience watching in person than via streaming, games seems much faster in person.
  • Many college coaches watching the first day, but not as many as I expected. 
  • Saw at least a couple of DI head coaches who don’t normally go to tournaments or showcases, but are here.
  • At least 5 coaches were previous Champs App podcast guests  🙂
  • Delayed offsides were permitted on the first day. Interesting that they aren’t following USA Hockey rules.
  • First day averaged a little under 5 minutes of penalties per game, which is only about 10% of the game time (46 minutes). So far that seems quite reasonable compared to past years

Note: The details of the camp are very similar to the 15’s Player Development Camp that I previous wrote about in two parts

Update: Forgot to mention that the in-arena DJ is very good. Not the same music as every other rink. Plus the penalty-specific tunes are spot on.

Read Part II: More Thoughts on the 2023 USA Hockey 16/17 Girls Development Camp here

Also: Analyzing the USA Hockey Girls 16/17 Camp Defense Selections for the U18 Camp – Champs App

USA-Hockey
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2023 College Hockey Recruiting Girl's Showcase Women's Hockey

NGHL NCAA EXPOSURE CAMP 2023

June 10-11, 2023 – Newington, CT

Go straight to: Instructions on How to Connect with Coaches

Why Create a Champs App Profile? (Video)

How to Create a Beautiful Hockey Profile That Gets Noticed (Video)

Coaching Staff

Katie zimmerman

Head Coach – Western New England Golden Bears

ashley salerno

Assistant Coach – Middlebury Panthers

jess koizumi

Associate Head Coach – Vermont Catamounts

RACHEL GRAMPP

Head Coach – Buffalo State Bengals

Taylor ham

Assistant Coach – Connecticut College Camels

eliza kelley

Head Coach – Worcester State Lancers

Tori emoff

Head Coach – Stevenson Mustangs

Mia del rosso

Assistant Coach – Trinity Bantams

Champs App lets players create beautiful, free hockey resume that facilitate the college and prep hockey recruiting process. 

“How do I know coaches will remember me after the NGHL NCAA Camp?”

By connecting directly with coaches, players can know that coaches will continue to follow them after the NGHL event during the regular season (see their schedule, video & profile updates). Coaches can not only get more details about each player, but also see their upcoming schedule, regular teams and coaches.

Instructions:

Step 1: Create your free Champs App Profile hockey resume here

Step 2: To make it easier for the NCAA Exposure Camp coaches to find you – add your NGHL Team as your current team to your Champs profile and make sure to include your jersey #

Step 3:  Review the list of the NGHL NCAA Exposure Camp coaches above to connect with and then send connection requests to the coaches/schools you are interested in from within Champs App.

Categories
Coaching College Hockey Recruiting Player Development Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Some Thoughts on the Ohio State Women’s Hockey Recruiting Strategy

Ohio State women’s ice hockey head coach Nadine Muzerall is a winner. Muzerall, who won two national championships as a player and four as a coach with the University of Minnesota, has instilled a winning culture at Ohio State. She has a proven track record of success in her seven years at OSU. With Muzerall at the helm, Ohio State women’s hockey team has made the Frozen Four the last three years,  won the National Championship in 2021-22 and appeared in the finals again this past March.

Coach Muzerall Wants to Win Every Year

A key ingredient in OSU’s ability to compete these last few years for a National Championship has been to add high-end, experienced talent from other schools via the transfer portal.  In 2021-22, OSU had 8 upperclass players transfer from other schools n their roster (including 3 from Robert Morris University which had just folded).  In 2022-23 there were 5 players who came to OSU via the transfer portal including Makenna Webster (from Wisconsin who finished 4th in scoring on the team), Lauren Bernard (D from Clarkson who played in all 41 games) and Kenzie Hauswirth (from Quinnipiac who finished 8th in team scoring). So these players were significant contributors to the team’s success this past season.

Want to Win Before Your Career Ends? Transfer to OSU

With as many as 8-10 players leaving the program this spring, Coach Muzerall’s strategy is not to rebuild, but to reload. Over the past few weeks, Coach Muzerall has reloaded with more experienced high-end talent via the transfer portal by adding Olympian defender Cayla Barnes from BC , Patty Kaz Top-10 Finalist Kiara Zanon from Penn State,  BC’s leading scorer Hannah Bilka, Kelsey King from Minnesota State and D Stephanie Markowski from Clarkson. Needless to say, a very talented group of transfers.

While there may be multiple reasons for these transfers to move on from their previous schools (e.g. graduated, no longer a fit etc.), the appeal of winning a national championship is pretty clear. For these new players, they know there is a very high probability they will be competing at the Frozen Four next March – while they may not have had the same opportunity if they stayed with their previous program. Why not go for it?

Source: https://gopherpucklive.com/transfer-portal/

The Impact on Underclass Players

At the same time, there were at least 5 OSU players who entered the transfer portal this spring, all with multiple years of eligibility left.  Most notably, Sydney Morrow, a first-year D who tied for team scoring with USA Hockey at the U18 Women’s IIHF tournament in scoring last summer, transferred to Colgate.  From what I could tell watching the Frozen Four, while dressed for the last two games, Morrow saw little-to-no ice time as the 7th D.

Implications for Incoming Recruiting Classes

With the increased number of transfers, potential recruits must recognize that freshmen may find themselves in a more competitive environment at schools like OSU and may struggle to find playing time early on. Furthermore, coaching staff may give priority to more experienced players over freshmen, and this may impact player development. As a result, incoming freshmen may have to consider the challenge in earning their spot on the team and how hard it would be to make a meaningful contribution to the program in all four years of eligibility. While the transfer portal provides more opportunities for players to explore their options and find the best fit for their needs, it also creates a more challenging environment for incoming freshmen to establish themselves in the team.

Creates an Environment Between the “Have” and the “Have-Nots” Hockey Programs

The women’s hockey transfer portal has essentially created a two-tier system between the top talented schools and everyone else. The portal has provided top-tier programs with the ability to attract and acquire the best players in the country, leaving other schools having to figure out to replace the top talent they lose to these programs. The top schools have the resources and coaching staff to offer a highly competitive environment and the opportunity to compete for national championships, which makes them attractive destinations for talented transfers. On the other hand, smaller or less successful programs may struggle to keep up, which creates a divide in the quality of play between the top programs and everyone else. While the transfer portal has created new opportunities for high-end players to explore and find the best fit for their needs, it is creating an uneven playing field in women’s college hockey.

It will be interesting to see if other Top 10 schools begin to copy the Ohio State strategy of picking off several top players via the transfer portal in order to better compete with the top recruiting schools like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Northeastern and Minnesota-Duluth who have not yet adopted this strategy (even though all schools have the occasional top talent transfer).

What Happens When No More 5th Year (Covid) Eligibility? 

It will be interesting to see how things go with the 2025 recruiting class for Ohio State. The last class of Covid year grad students is 2024, so the pool of 5th year transfers will be much smaller and potential players would likely need to be move prior to graduating from their current schools.  Will the top players from the incoming class of 2025 be concerned about transfer portal players at OSU and thus look elsewhere? We will find out this fall.

Implications For Potential Recruits and Which Schools to Consider

As a high school player trying to figure out which program is right for you, it would be important to be realistic about your own talents and where you might fit in the line-up over all four of your years. Even if you are a national U-18 team member, you might still struggle to get ice time at a top tier program that brings in experienced top talent with 1 or 2 years of eligibility left.

During the recruiting process, understanding the coaching staff’s player development process over 4 years and ice time philosophy is an important conversation to have before a decision is made.

Categories
College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Q1 2023 DI Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update

This is an update to a previous post from December, 2022 on “Q4 2022 DI Women’s College Hockey Commitment Rate Update”. The number of announced commitments for 2024 continues to lag all previous recruiting years despite 2 new teams coming on board this fall.

DI Women’s Hockey Commitment Rate by Months Prior to College

2023 Commits

2023 commits are tracking at about 20-25 less announcements than the last two years (~12% less commitments). Between the transfer portal, 5th year eligible players this is consistent with our recent analysis on forwards and goalies. There are probably only a handful of spots remaining at the DI level, mostly related to unexpected roster changes from players leaving their current schools.

2024 Commits

The 2024 commits continue to be even further behind the 2023 commitment rate as of mid-April, 2023 by about 15% (85 2024’s vs 102 2023’s at this time last year). While there should be at least another 70 spots that haven’t been announced, many schools have been telling players they are full at the moment.

2025 Commits

The first few commits for 2025 have been announced. With June 15, 2023 quickly approaching, by the end of the summer, this number will grow dramatically.

Goalies

There are only 16 2023 commits and 10 2024 commits that have been publicly announced. In a “normal” year there should be about 33 freshman goalies per year (44 teams x 3 goalies per team / 4 years). As mentioned above, the extra year of eligibility or red-shirting has provided a glut of goalies already at the NCAA level who are filling spots that would normally be filled by the incoming classes. Very tough for all goalies these last two years. And even if they get an offer, there is no guarantee of playing time. Note: No goalies from (re-)starting programs RMU and Assumption, which should have 3 incoming goalies each this fall, have been publicly announced, but surely have commits.

Data assumptions:

  1. Data commitment dates – source: collegecommitments.com and Champs App analysis
  2. Transfers between DI programs are not included in the number of commits
  3. Total number of publicly announced commitments for 2021 was 215 and for 2022 it was 214
Categories
College Hockey Recruiting Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

How to Create a Beautiful Hockey Profile That Gets Noticed

Creating your Champs App athletic profile typically takes about 20 – 40 minutes depending on how much content you want to include in your profile. You can always come back to add more details, especially when you have new games scheduled or videos you want to add.

STEP 1
MAKE SURE YOU ADD 3 IMAGES

1) Profile image – a good headshot which shows your full face (no helmet!)
2) Hero image – a traditional hockey pose like a 3-point stance or taking a shot
3) Cover photo – pick a cool photo like an action shot, something which shows your personality or a great team picture.

STEP 2
COMPLETE YOUR PERSONAL PROFILE SECTIONS

1) Personal – Basic personal information
2) Student – Your school level, grades and expected graduation
3) Athletic – Auto-populates based on your Team details below
4) Additional Information – Interesting info about yourself

STEP 3
ADD YOUR TEAMS

1) List of all the teams and coaches you have played for

2) Include your level, jersey number and additional information

STEP 4
ADD YOUR INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Put in your player or goalies stats for each season

STEP 5
VIDEO GALLERY. COACHES LOVE TO SEE YOU PLAY!

Add links to YouTube videos of your games, highlights and other helpful footage of you demonstrating your skills

STEP 6
SCHEDULE

Put in past and future games so coaches know who, where and when you are playing. Coaches will be notified of upcoming games each week, so it is important that you keep you schedule up-to-date if you want them to know that you are playing this weekend.

STEP 7
ADD SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

At the top of your profile you can add links to your Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snap and Facebook accounts.

WHAT’S NEXT?

You can share your profile with coaches and friends by copying and sharing your unique url
(e.g. profile.champs.app/h/firstname-lastname)

Go to My Network and invite teammates and coaches to connect with you

Categories
Women's Hockey

Why Create a Champs App Profile?

Champs App lets you create a free, beautiful hockey resume and helps players, parents and coaches connect to facilitate the hockey recruiting process.

With Champs App profile you can:

· Share highlight videos, statistics and coach information

· Add a player’s playing history (teams, coaches, level of play) and upcoming games schedule

· Share personal, student and athletic profile information

· Invite and connect with coaches, players and teammates

Once you create your profile, you will have a personalized link to share with coaches and teams.

1. WHY SHOULD I CREATE A HOCKEY PROFILE?

Creating a player profile helps provide coaches most of the information they need to get on their recruiting radar. It is like an online sports resumé.

You can view sample profiles here:  Women’s: Cammie Knight  and Men’s: Wayne Crosby 

2. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO CREATE A PROFILE?

Most users tell us it takes between 15 and 30 minutes to complete the basics of their profile. You can then come back and add more video and details whenever you like.

3. WHAT DO I NEED TO CREATE A PLAYER PROFILE?

  • Three images (profile picture, action shot and a cover photo)
  • Personal profile information (personal, academic and academic information
  • Add your team information (current and past)
  • Videos with highlights and games showing off your talents
  • Schedule – add recent and future games and events to let coaches know where to find you play

4. WHAT DO I DO NEXT

You can connect with players and coaches by sending them a link to your profile by email. Or you can also invite other coaches and players to connect by visiting their Champs App profile and tapping the “Connect” button. Here is the current list of NCAA Coaches with Champs App profiles.

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