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Tag: hockey-development

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Player Development Skating Women's Hockey

What does it take to be a truly elite player?

The Player Development Hierarchy

In past posts, I have discussed what it takes to become a great hockey player.  To keep it simple, I would say that those posts describe the path to becoming a true AAA-level player.  At every age group, there are roughly 150-200 AAA level teams for boys and 75-100 AAA teams for girls across the US and Canada.  That means that means there are over 1000 great hockey players at every age level. 

So what does a player who is the best-of-the-best look like?

Over the past couple of years I have watched many of the top teams and players on both sides of the border and have come up with a simple framework on the hierarchy of attributes that these top players possess.

The following diagram shows how these attributes build on each other and, when done in combination, display a top-level of excellence in hockey players.

Level 1: Fundamental Skills

Hockey requires a range of fundamental skills, including skating (e.g. speed and agility), stickhandling, shooting and passing. These are the essential capabilities a player must have in order to get to the elite level.  Clearly, becoming elite at one of the skills helps get you closer to becoming an overall top-level player, but it isn’t sufficient.

Level 2:  Good Habits

There are several on-ice habits that hockey players need to develop and demonstrate on every shift.  These include technical behaviors like shoulder-checking and staying between the dots if you are a D.  Or sticking with your man or going hard to the net and stopping at the goalie if you are a forward. Quite frankly, for every position there is a long list of good habits a player needs to learn and continually maintain.  More broadly, here are some of the other good habits that separate the elite from the rest. 

  1. Hustle: Hockey is a fast-paced game that requires players to move quickly and efficiently. Players who hustle and work hard on the ice are more likely to make plays and create scoring opportunities for their team. Scouts notice which players hustle every shift versus those that take some shifts off during a game.
  2. Communication: In a game, players need to communicate with their teammates on the ice, using clear and concise language to call for passes, provide direction, and coordinate defensive strategies.
  3. Positioning:  Being in the right place at the right time is critical to elite players. Knowing where and when to move to the right areas of the ice separates top players from the rest of their peers.
  4. Anticipation: Anticipation is the ability to read the game and predict what will happen next. Players who are able to anticipate their opponents’ movements and read the play effectively are more likely to make plays and create scoring opportunities for their team.
  5. Discipline: Discipline is important in hockey, both in terms of  staying out of the penalty box and maintaining good habits on the ice.

By developing these good on-ice habits, hockey players can have a strong foundation to play at the elite level.

Level 3: Decision Making

To become an elite player, decision making is a critical skill that must be constantly developed and honed.  Specifically, decision making spans multiple dimensions and situation for players:

  1. Reading the Play: Hockey players must be able to read the play and make decisions based on what they see on the ice. This involves being aware of the positions of teammates and opponents, predicting where the puck will go, and anticipating the movements of other players.
  2. Puck Management: Puck management is an essential aspect of decision making in hockey. Players must decide when to shoot, pass, or carry the puck, and must be able to make those decisions quickly and confidently.
  3. Positioning: Good positioning is key to making effective decisions in hockey. Players must be able to position themselves in a way that maximizes their effectiveness and allows them to make quick decisions based on the flow of the game.
  4. Communication: Effective communication is essential for good decision making in hockey. Players must be able to communicate quickly and clearly with their teammates, both on and off the ice, to ensure that everyone is on the same page and can make decisions based on a shared understanding of the game.
  5. Adaptability: Finally, hockey players must be adaptable and able to make decisions in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. They must be able to react quickly to changes in the game and adjust their decisions accordingly, often on the fly.

Level 4: Deception and Protection

Deception and puck protection are important skills for ice hockey players to develop in order to create scoring opportunities and maintain possession of the puck.  In my experience, it is the highest order of development to display, because it relies on all the other attributes for players to be able to successfully perform them during games. 

  1. Deception: Deception is the act of misleading or confusing an opponent in order to gain an advantage. Players can use deception in a variety of ways, such as faking a shot, passing in the opposite direction, or changing direction suddenly. To develop deception skills, players should focus on maintaining good body posture and making quick, decisive movements to keep opponents guessing. There is a long list of fakes, but knowing which one to pick at the right moment is a skill in itself.
  2. Puck Protection: Puck protection is the ability to maintain possession of the puck while being checked by an opponent. To protect the puck effectively, players should keep their body between the puck and the opponent, use their body to shield the puck (e.g. mohawks or pivot turns), and maintain good balance and body position. They can also use quick fakes and sudden changes of direction to throw off the opponent’s timing.
  3. Reading the Defense: To be effective at deception and puck protection, players should be able to read the defense and anticipate their opponent’s movements. They should look for gaps in the defense, predict where the opponent is likely to go, and adjust their movements accordingly.

Deception and protection can be high risk, especially if they aren’t executed properly. If players attempt a fake or fancy puck protection move and fail, it can easily end up in the back of your net and you can be stapled to the bench by your coach. This is why players who can successfully perform these moves are considered elite.

It is certainly possible to demonstrate parts of these four attributes independently of the other, but to be a high end AAA player, these capabilities create synergies with each other when performed consistently together.  

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Coaching Player Development Youth Hockey

Does your Player Have an In-season Personal Development Plan?

You can’t depend solely on your team coach to make you a better hockey player. There, I said it.

In my experience, I haven’t seen any team coaches work with individual players to create personal development plans. Typically, I’ve seen pre-season and mid-season reviews which discuss overall player development. And I’ve seen coaches ask players to put together a list what they need to work on. But after that, it is usually up to the player to get better at those items themselves.

During the season, almost all coaches focus on team concepts like breakouts, special teams (power play and penalty kill), defensive positioning etc. They also spend time in practice on basic skill development like passing, skating, board battles and game situations like 2-on-1s.

In reality, team coaches don’t have a lot of time in practice to work on the individual, unique needs of each player.  Of course, there is always the coach who spends extra time with one or two ‘special’ players on a team and gives them more attention. But, on average, you can’t expect a team coach to be responsible for working on your player’s highest priority development needs.

To get better as a hockey player you need to be working throughout the season on the areas in your game that will have the biggest impact on your overall improvement and success.

So if you’re team coach isn’t working directly with you or your player on a personal development plan, how do you develop one?

In a previous post, I described that I am a big believer in Darryl Belfry’s methodology of tracking high frequency events and success/failure rates to prioritize what a player should work on. After a series of 3 or 4 games, you should be able to look at the video and see which areas of your game you are repeatedly under-performing. From this analysis, you should be able to prioritize 3-5 skills or attributes that you need to work on.  This is your personal development plan.

The next step is to figure out how to get better at those areas.  Of course this will depend on what your specific needs are – but it could be anything from working on skating or shooting the puck to positioning on the ice.  Some might be easy fixes and others might take months to work on to gain the required proficiency.  The key is to find someone or somehow to help you get better and to work on those areas between games. This is easier said than done, because figuring out the right person to help or how to help yourself may take some effort.

I have had many parents complain to me that their kid’s coach isn’t helping them get better at the areas that the player really needs help on.  My response is that I have learned not to expect any team coach to make my kids better. Most youth team coaches don’t have the time or interest in going that deep with every player on a team. If the team coach does do it, that’s a bonus and an indication of a high-level coach who “gets it” – but in reality they are rare to find.

Key Takeaway: You can’t only expect team coaches to make you a better player, you need to be responsible for you own development.

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Coaching Development Camp Girls Hockey Minor Hockey Women's Hockey Youth Hockey

Hockey Player Feedback

One of my biggest frustrations over the last 18 months or so has been about providing feedback to players. Across many different playing environments I have been consistently disappointed in the lack of sophistication and priority on giving insightful, actionable feedback to players. This post discusses the good and bad of hockey coach feedback to players.

Here is what I’ve seen what most coaches are good at:

1. In-game feedback

For the most part, coaches have no problem talking to players after a shift and have a conversation about what just happened. Some coaches are more positive and constructive than others (e.g. “What did you see?” rather than “Here is what you did wrong…”).  I doubt there are many coaches who last a reasonable amount of time without providing this basic level of constructive player feedback.

2. Overall team style of play / team concepts

I won’t say systems – because some youth coaches do play systems and others have a type of hockey they want to play which focuses more on skills rather than set plays and rules.  In general, coaches know how to set theses expectations and work on the in practice. Thus it can be pretty easy to give this kind of feedback either on the bench or in the locker room.

However, here’s what coaches generally aren’t good at:

A. Having position-specific, age and level appropriate development  framework

What are the prioritized skills and attributes a player should be competent in? What are their biggest strengths that they can leverage? What areas do they need to level up so that they can minimize those attributes being exposed. For example, skating, puck handling, shot strength and accuracy.   From what I’ve seen, it is usually one-off feedback with the player having to work on it with by themselves or with their own skills development coach.

Having a coach show personalized clips to an individual player is very rare.  Many coaches do not have the time or resources to provide player-specific reviews.  However, it can be a shared responsibility between player, coach and parent to clip together game footage and to discuss together.

B. In-season feedback

Providing individual report cards or interim check-ins throughout the season on what strengths and development opportunities like skills and/or concepts for a player. For example, Darryl Belfry likes to look at players over a 3 or 4 game segment and track with video and basic stats (e.g. how many puck touches turn into a positive or negative play) and then discuss them with a player.  Some coaches give mid-year reviews for their players and in my experience it looks like a bullet list of 3 or items for the player to work on.  However, the onus is then on the player to figure out how to get better at those items on their own. 

C. Holistic, high level feedback

This is a tough one.

Being candid with a player about where they are with their game at the moment can be a very tough conversation regardless of the players abilities.  All players are an unfinished product. And in youth hockey they are still a long way from their peak potential – so providing the appropriate context and perspective is not always easy.

Why don’t all coaches provide holistic feedback? Some…

  • Just aren’t good coaches (or at least not as good as they think they are)
  • Don’t have a long-term development framework for players at each level
  • Don’t know how to provide feedback effectively
  • Don’t invest the time in the process (don’t have time)
  • It is not a priority for them
  • Don’t have an  incentive to put in the time
  • Don’t have a framework
  • Fear of parent/player reaction
  • Politics

Unfortunately, I have seen the above at almost every level, but most disappointing has been seeing it at the highest levels of hockey.  For example, in a rare instance of this being done well…one player who was in consideration for a national team, received lots of feedback and what the coaches wanted to them do this season.  However, what was more common are the many examples where other players attending national camps received little to no meaningful feedback, even when requested. It seems that unless a coach or organization has a vested, long-term interest in a player or team, they will not put in the time or effort that most players need.

As a parent or a youth player, it is important to be realistic on the types of feedback to expect from your team coach based on the level of play and the club/program you signed up for.  In most situations, you will likely have to go beyond the basic feedback practices of your coach and find ways to supplement them with other experts you trust.

(Note to my kids current coaches: I am not referring to you – this post was mostly written over the past summer and incorporates conversations I’ve had with parents from all over the country).

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College Hockey Recruiting Girls Hockey Parents Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey Youth Hockey

How to Pick a Hockey Academy

girls hockey academy

As the new hockey season begins, many girls and their parents will begin the process of looking at hockey academies for next fall. We went through this process last year with the schools most folks would consider the top three girls hockey academies in the U.S.  Here are some of the key learnings from our experience and how our daughter made her decision on which one was right for her.

This post is less about the specific hockey academy my daughter chose to attend this year, and more about the various factors that went into her decision that anyone considering going to a female hockey academy should consider.

In addition, this isn’t meant as a critique of any program – each program has their pros and cons – which is why none of the programs are specifically mentioned. And while there were significant differences in the “candidate experience” for how my daughter was treated by each school during the process, that topic won’t be covered here.

Context: Factors schools look at to be interested in your player

Just like in the work world, recruiting is a two-way street. One of the first items to consider is how good is your player? Being a very good player is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for admission and selection. In addition schools also look at the following:

  • Grades and academic recommendations
  • Year/grade of entry into the program
  • Personality fit with the program
  • Long term player goals

The  application process and essay questions helps schools with assessing many of these factors.

Each player’s journey is unique

Each application is unique because there are a number of attributes that are distinct for the school and the student-athlete.  As an example, my daughter was already a sophomore when applying to these schools, and therefore the number of openings for a player who would only attend 2 (or possibly 3) years at the school did indeed impact her consideration. Specifically, the number of spots open for her position (defense) and her age varied by program, since the school needs to have the right balance of ages across both the 16U and 19Uteams. They can’t have 10 D with the same graduation year.

Priorities for Parents & Players:

Here are the 8 factors that we considered for evaluating the three hockey academies (in priority order):

  1. Coaching
  2. Academics
  3. Team Culture
  4. Hockey Facilities
  5. Boarding facilities
  6. Location (distance from home and amenities)
  7. Cost
  8. Recruiting visibility

All the school players get great exposure to college coaches.  And while many players play college hockey, not all of them play DI – so it is no guarantee that getting into a hockey academy will mean a  DI scholarship or playing in the Ivy League.

Breaking Down the Eight Factors in Evaluating Hockey Academies

1. Coaching

The most important factor was clearly player development. Where did we think our daughter would be the best she could be? And since coaches and skill development are critical to her success, over the two or three years should would be attending, we did back-channel references on all the coaches she would likely be interacting with from current parents and alumni players from each program.

A few questions that you should ask the coaches:

 a) Will there be a coach who knows how to coach my player’s specific position? This is even more important for goaltenders.

 b) What is the coach’s philosophy about ice time during the season and playoffs? How do you trade off winning vs development?

c)  If the player is not on the top line, will they still develop by getting game ice time and receiving productive feedback  from the coaching staff (not just being criticized for errors)? 

There were indeed significant differences for these answers across programs.

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2. Academics

Getting a solid education while playing hockey is obviously quite important. And while all the hockey academies send players to top schools, it seemed that some were better than others at actually preparing students for the next level in their education. I have no doubt most girls will rise to the occasion when they get to college, but we definitely saw big variation in our perception on how well our daughter would be prepared for university level courses.

Note: If academics were the #1 priority for a player, they should probably consider a New England prep school.

3. Team Culture

At most of the hockey academies, players come from all over the country and were typically the best players on their team prior to arrival. As a result, their attitude towards their teammates and the camaraderie seemed to differ across schools. Some were more humble and accessible, while at others, a sense of superiority, entitlement and cliques were more obvious. If you are going to spend 24 hours a day with your teammates, you will want to make sure you really like spending time with them.

4. Hockey Facilities

Candidly, some of the hockey and training infrastructure available at one of the schools is significantly better than the others.  Having 24 hour access to ice time is definitely an advantage for some academies. As well, off-ice training facilities and rehab resources can make a difference. The key is knowing what some of the trade-offs are between programs and which are “must-haves” vs. “nice-to-haves”. It is similar to women’s college teams, some have pro-level facilities, while other top name programs aren’t as lavish, but still consistently are Top 10 teams on the ice.

5. Boarding Facilities

Factors like room size, number of roommates, access to kitchens and food can make a difference to the player.  Four people to room is different than two to a room. Meals are obviously a big deal and getting the high quality meals at the right time of day is very important.  Other small amenities can matter too, for example, my daughter likes to bake – so that was one of the factors that was a positive for her in her choice.

6. Location

Depending on where you live and how independent your player is, location can matter.  Distance from home and the amenities surrounding the school may impact your experience.  For us, we would be travelling from the west coast, so it was less important from a parent point of view since all of them were far from home.

7. Cost

Obviously this varies by school and your specific needs.  This would include tuition, boarding, hockey and travel costs. Not just the player costs, but also the cost for the parents to travel to games and to the school.  There are differences between schools, but you would need to assess the difference in value to you individually for your specific situation.

8. Recruiting Visibility

While this is very important, the reality is that all the U.S. hockey academies are highly scouted and have the top coaches watching many of their games in-person and online. If your player is good enough for their school, they will get seen.  Even more importantly, your player’s coaches will have existing relationships with almost all DI and top DIII schools.  This is a major asset the academies provide and will certainly give your player access that many other club programs probably don’t have. 

Summary

As mentioned above, every player’s path is different, but these were the key themes and factors that drove our daughters decision. If you had a different experience, additional thoughts or questions. Feel free to reach out on social media or here to share your experience.

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Development Camp Girls Hockey

A few notes from the 2022 USA Hockey Pacific District Camp

This past weekend I was in Las Vegas to watch my second USA Hockey Pacific Districts Camp.  The general format was pretty much the same as last year, with 3 practices and 3 games. However, there were a few subtle differences from the previous year that I wanted to share. Here are my notes:

Camp Structure

This year, my daughter was participating in the 16/17’s group (made up of 2005 and 2006 birth years).  There was also a 15’s group (2007 players) just like last year, but in addition there was a 14’s group (2008 birth year).  Each group was made up of 4 teams – typically 9 or 10 forwards, 6 D and 2 goalies.

Last year,  16 players from the 15’s groups were sent to national camp (8F, 5D, 3G); 8 players were selects for the 16/17s camp (5F, 3D, 0G) and 4 players picks to go straight to the U18s camp (2F, 2D, 0G).  There are no exact numbers provided for this year other than the guidance in the USA Hockey Guidebook.

Unlike last year, the games were two 30-minute run-time periods. Last year it was only 24 minutes per period, and it really made a difference in ice time. Last year, a player would typically only get 10 or 11 shifts per game, this year it felt like it was between 15 and 20. 

Quality of Play

In addition, I noticed a significantly higher level of play at the 16/17s level than last year at the 15’s age groups. This was likely due to a combination of factors.  Since at this age group is a combined-age tryout, only the top half of players from each age group made the camp, therefore raising the bar on the quality of player to be selected to the camp.  Also, with the players being a year or two older than the 15’s, the difference in development was pretty easy to see.  I should note that several alternates from the regional tryouts were added to rosters as some of the original selections did not come – so you could see a range in talent on just about every team. Finally, unlike what I saw with the 15’s, the shift length for players at the higher level was much more reasonable.  Rarely did I see 2 or 2.5 minute shifts. My general impression was that the overall level was pretty good with a few elite players, hockey in the Pacific District still has a long way to go to match the skill level I saw the previous weekend at a 3-on-3 Minnesota High School tournament.

Refs-In-Training

An interesting twist in this year’s event, is that in parallel to the players camp, it was also some kind of camp/evaluation for referees. Not sure if it was USA Hockey-specific or IIHF.  The good news, is that the refs took their job very seriously – and didn’t let many things go that you normally see in a summer showcase (e.g. offsides, icings etc.). Alternatively, there were several awkward moments, such as refs being out of position and running into players in the middle of plays, and being a little over-zealous with not permitting teams to make line changes before face-offs. There was one top player who got called for a penalty when the out-of-position ref caused her to lose the puck – and the player let the ref know she wasn’t pleased . I am all for better training of refs and helping them improve and certainly don’t expect perfection, but at this type of event, ref training shouldn’t be at the expense of the players who were there to try out.

Selection Process

I estimated there were between 20 and 25 coaches representing USA Hockey at the event – whether on-ice with the players or evaluating from their private viewing area. It seemed to be a similar mix to last year of DIII coaches, current NCAA players, Pacific district coaches and other USA Hockey representatives. From a parents perspective, it would be nice to know what some of the evaluation criteria are for each position. However, from all the experienced eyes on the players over the course of the four days, I am trusting that their selection process is reasonably objective and can truly figure out who the top players were to move on to the national camps.

A nice improvement from last year, was the fact that USA Hockey clearly declared the dates in which the results would be published, May 25th.  So there was no ambiguity and confusion about what the expectations are for the outcome of the selection camp. Even better, it is less than 2 weeks from the event, unlike last year when it was almost a month delay.

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College Hockey Recruiting Girl's Showcase Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

Which Girls Showcases Should I Attend in 2022?

I’ve been asked a few times recently about which showcases to attend in 2022. While I am not the expert on all showcases and which ones to attend, here are a variety of thoughts I have on the subject:

Showcases are just one type of event to be included in your college recruiting strategy.  Other events such as spring/summer tournaments (e.g. Beantown Classic) , USA Hockey selects process (districts & nationals) and college-sponsored camps are some others. Here is the current list we’ve compiled on our 2022 Girls Hockey Event Calendar.

2022 Girls Hockey Showcases

What’s your why?

Therefore, the first question I would ask is “What are your goals for attending the showcase?”. If you are just going to an event for fun, to get ice time or play with friends – then it really shouldn’t matter which showcase you attend. If you are using these events for development purposes, then as long as the player is receiving reasonable time of on ice-development with college-level coaches, then the specific event is less important. However, if you are going specifically to be seen by college coaches, how does it fit in with the women’s college hockey recruiting process that schools follow when engaging with prospective recruits?

Womens College Hockey Recruiting Process

As with many recruiting questions, the answer to which showcases to attend is…“it depends”. Specifically, as was told to me very early in this process, each player’s journey is a unique one, so it all relates to their specific situation.

Here are the three key questions I would use to develop a point-of-view…

1. Where are you in the recruiting process?

Are you before or after the rising junior (i.e. just finished sophomore year of high school) June 15th deadline when you can talk to coaches directly? If before, then your goal is really just to get on the radar of college coaches – basically get your name added to their tracking list. If after, would coaches at the event help your relationship or improve your visibility with them?

Girls Hockey Showcase

2. How good is your player?

Based on what you know and the feedback you’ve received from you player’s coaches, how does the player compare to their peers?  Are they one of the best for their age in the country (e.g. attended one of the USA Hockey National Camps or play on a highly rated team)?  Have they been the best player on most of the teams they’ve played on? Are they likely to have to decide between a lower ranked DI team vs a highly ranked DIII school? Or are they just an average player on an average team? Being realistic on where the player might fit into the DI/DIII range of teams would be helpful.

3. Which schools does the player have the most interested in?

Assuming those schools are a real possibility of tracking the player, then those events would be at the top of the list.  If you haven’t narrowed down any schools and don’t have a preference yet, then do some research into which hockey programs and academic majors/departments overlap for the player’s interests. Also, location, school size and financial means are additional factors to consider.

Focus, focus, focus

If you are eligible (or close enough) to talk directly with coaches, then being very focused on your shortlist of targeted schools is key. I would recommend 3-5 schools on that list. The better the player, the more targeted you can be with the schools you believe you have a realistic chance of the college reciprocating the interest. 

Most coaches state that they use showcases to help put players on their radar and to start tracking them. The typical evaluation by coaches takes place during the regular season with their fall/winter teams.  Thus, many college coaches have told me they don’t need to see a player more than once or twice at showcases. Watching them 5 or 6 times over the spring/summer becomes redundant since the player rarely shows significant development in such a short period of time. However, not all coaches/schools attend every event – so it is tempting to go to at least 3 or 4 showcases/tournaments to cover all your bases.

Which coaches will be attending?

Given the above, which tournaments have the schools attending their events which best line-up with target teams? For example, the OHD Camp in Nashville has very different coaches from the PIP Boston Showcase. Finding the right match of events and coaches can be a little tricky.

Smaller can be better

From my experience last summer, for a player who is not allowed to officially talk to schools yet, the best showcases were the smaller ones (with 6 or less teams of players – ~100 attendees or so). This way  the player can have meaningful on-ice and on-the-bench conversations with coaches and to create direct relationships with them.  Some showcases have dozens of teams other just a handful.

Finally, this summer, for my daughter, we are prioritizing school-specific camps and the USA Hockey selects camp process over showcases and tournaments. Her unique journey has her focusing on her development this summer as she prepares to attend a hockey academy this fall.  Since she will be “seen” quite a bit next year during the “regular season”, she can narrow her target this spring/summer on a small number of schools.

DIII Recruiting

One last thought…you will almost always see DIII coaches at most of these events. Usually from schools that are a reasonable distance from the event site (due to travel costs). Once again, depending on your situation, location matters for DIII recruiting at showcases.

Categories
Champs Coaching Minor Hockey Parents Youth Hockey

How Champs App helped get a AAA tryout for my kid

Tryouts

Last week, I started to explore new teams for my 14-year old son to play on next season. He has played AA hockey the last four seasons, but is ready to play AAA. At the same time, as a family we are considering moving to a new city so both our kids are playing hockey in the same area (my daughter just committed to play at a hockey academy this fall). So I looked at MyHockeyRankings to see which AAA teams were nearby and found a highly rated team.

I then visited the team’s website and found the name and email of the coach for my son’s age group. I immediately cold-emailed the coach, asking if there might be spots open on the team next year. I included a link to my son’s Champs App profile which included his personal and athletic profile. And most importantly, I had 5 videos included on the page. One 2.5  minute video of his hockey highlights from the past season and 4 recent playoff games from LiveBarn which were edited down to just his shifts (so, about 16 minutes each).

Here are a couple of sample profiles to see what a Champs App profile looks like: Girl’s Profile – Boy’s Profile

I was lucky that the coach was very responsive. Later that day the coach emailed me back and said he would take a look. A couple of days later, we scheduled a phone call.

What happened next surprised me a little bit…

To start the call, I joked with the coach that he must be getting hundreds of inquiries from parents saying their kid is the next Connor McDavid and they want their player to try out for his team. He then shared that, yes indeed, he was getting many tryout requests, but none of the parents were sending him all the information and video about their kid like I did. He had even forwarded the profile link to a couple of other coaches to get their opinion. The coach had no idea that I helped build Champs App, but what mattered was that he had all the information he needed (similar to a resume for a job interview) to invite my son to come tryout.

While all the profile information was helpful in getting the coach up-to-speed, it was the videos that were critical to him seeing my son’s level of play. There was enough in the video for him to recognize my son’s strengths as a hockey player and overall skills were at least in the same ballpark as the current players on the team.

Needless to say, the coach just made my day. Not only was my son going to tryout but it was great to see how effective his Champs App profile was in helping him and could help others.

Create your Champs App Profile

We did a lot of research asking college coaches what they wanted to see in a player’s profile for Champs App and now we are seeing it pay off.  Now we are starting to spread the word – so feel free to create a Champs App Profile for your player here and share the app with coaches and teammates.

Categories
College Hockey Recruiting Development Camp Girls Hockey Women's College Hockey Women's Hockey

What I learned attending the USA Hockey 15s Girls Development Camp

Part III – College Recruiting

This is the third and final post focusing on the college recruiting process based my experience as a parent at the USA Hockey Girls Camp that took place in St Cloud Minnesota from July 10-15, 2021.

You can read the previous posts about the Schedule & Operational Details and USA Hockey Player Development

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what to write for this post.  I wanted to specifically discuss what happened at the USA Hockey 15’s camp in St. Cloud.  However, I have come to realize that it would be incomplete without providing additional context about the entire women’s college recruiting process.  As a result, for this post I am mostly just going to stick to the facts and data I collected.  Separately, I will soon publish a detailed post about what I have figured out so far about the end-to-end recruiting process to give the perspective needed for any individual event.

What became obvious quite quickly, is that coaches from all over the country were flocking to St Cloud to see the top 216 15-year old female players.  Kristin Wright stated at the opening parents meeting that 90% of schools would be at the Development Camp at some point during the week.  Based on all the logos I saw that number must have been pretty close.

Here are the schools I saw first-hand, but I am sure this is not a complete list:

• Bemidji State
• Boston College
• Boston University
• Brown
• Clarkson
• Cornell
• Franklin Pierce
• Harvard
• Holy Cross
• Lindenwood
• Mercyhurst
• Minnesota
• Minnesota State
• Northeastern
• Ohio State
• Princeton
• Providence
• Quinnipiac
• Rice
• RPI
• Sacred heart
• St Cloud
• St Lawrence
• St Thomas
• Vermont
• Union
• Wisconsin

At a basic level coaches had two objectives for attending the event:

  • Watching players already on their list and track their performance/development
  • Identify new players to add to their follow list

Since I was sitting in the stands with most of the coaches I had a few observations. Some coaches were very social and others kept to themselves.  Some showed up just the first couple of days, others just for the last 2 or 3 days. Unlike 16/17s camp which took place a couple of weeks earlier, coaches can’t talk to the 15’s parents – so there was almost engagement between coaches and parents. Schools that I did not see their logos seemed to have on-ice coaches represented at either the 16/17s camp or the U18 camp. Many coaches had printed rosters or iPads to identify players and take notes. But quite a few did not appear to have a method to take notes or remember players.  Each school seem to have a different scouting strategy/plan. Some schools had multiple coaches, while other only had one representative. As well, some scouts only watched games, while other watched all the public practices and scrimmages.

A couple of schools really stood out to me during the week

Brian Durocher Boston University

The first was Boston University head coach Brian Durocher who spent the first three days watching almost every practice and game. He would just stand on his own down along the glass quietly taking notes on a little piece of paper. And when there was a break on one rink he go watch players on the other rink.  He was very unassuming, but clearly using his many years of experience to evaluate players and take copious notes.

The other school that impressed, was the team of Ohio State coaches (at least four in total both on-ice and off-ice) who were making sure they watched all the girls on both rinks throughout the week. They typically sat in a group around head coach Nadine Muzerall and watched a lot of hockey together. As a Michigan grad it isn’t easy for me to say nice things about OSU, but clearly they have prioritized scouting and their recruiting process as a key to their success.

In my next post I will discuss what I have learned about different stages of the women’s college recruiting process. This will help answer many of the questions I have received about how much should a player be seen in the spring and summer at showcases and events compared to their regular season team.

Categories
Coaching Development Camp Girl's Showcase Girls Hockey Women's Hockey

What I learned attending the USA Hockey 15s Girls Development Camp

Part II

USA Hockey Player Development

This post is the second in a series about the USA Hockey Girls 15’s Camp I attended from July 10-15, 2021.

At the start of camp, Kristen Wright helped provide perspective on how to think about the bigger picture for what the week was about. The 15’s Camp is really just the first step in a USA Hockey player’s journey at the national level. For many it can be a multi-year process including their college years as the they try to be included in the conversation to make the National Women’s Team.

Realistically, in the short term, for most girls, the ultimate goal of attending any of the girls camps (15,16/18 or U18), is to be invited to the Women’s National Festival which includes players from all age groups (National Team, U23 and U18) being considered for a national roster.

However, for the week of camp, unless something truly exceptional occurred, this Covid year, there would be no decision on advancing or further outcome beyond the camp for any of the players in attendance. Everyone would just head back home richer from the experience and will go though a similar process next year to make the 2022 16/17s camp or if they we one of the top players, potentially go directly to the U18’s camp.

USA-Hockey

Given the above, what did I think were the objectives for the camp from a USA Hockey perspective?

  1. Learn about the USA Hockey national program for girls/women and understand what it takes to compete and potentially make a national team (U18, U23, Women’s National Team)
  2. Get seen & scouted by USA Hockey Coaches (to help get on the radar for the U18 Camp for 2022)
  3. Get feedback on strengths and development opportunities
  4. Get a benchmark of how good a player is relative to their peer group

1. Learn about the USA Hockey National Program

During the parent meeting, Kristen Wright shared the three core values of the USA Hockey program:

  • Relentless
  • Pride
  • Together

And from what I could sense as an outside observer, all the activities for the week centered around these principles. In addition, the theme of the week focused more on helping players be the best they can be rather than solely focus on what it would take to make any of the different age-specific national teams.  Given the size of the camp, on balance, that seemed like a more realistic focus. Better to focus on the values that players would need to consistently demonstrate to make a team rather than hockey-specific attributes that may not resonate at this time for most of the girls.

2. Get seen & scouted by USA Hockey Coaches

As mentioned in my previous post, the on-ice coach to player ratio was about 1:3 with somewhere in the range of 70-100 USA Hockey representatives participating in the camp.  I am assuming that USA Hockey leadership had some type of scouting information collection capability from both on-ice and off-ice observers at both games and practices. In addition, team coaches, team leaders and interns all got to observe their players both at the rink and outside of the rink during the week of camp.  Given all these points of data, I would expect that there is some type of player tracking tool with a summary of the information that was collected on each player. There must be some type of report card (beyond the testing results) that was being kept on each player. Ideally, this database would be used to benchmark players if they return to another USA Hockey camp.

As Kristen Wright alluded to the parents on the first afternoon, roughly speaking players are group into A’s (Top 25 or Top 50), B’s (the next ~100) and C’s (the lowest ~75 players). However, the messaging was clear, it really shouldn’t matter right now for players to hear what level they were evaluated. The girls were there to learn about what it took to make it to the next level in USA Hockey and they need to take those learnings and go back and work hard and get better for next year. This year’s evaluations would primarily be used as a way to track development and improvement in a year from now.

3. Get feedback on strengths and development opportunities

Each player received some type of feedback from one of their coaches during the week. Depending on the team and coach, the feedback session occurred during the second half of camp and was a 1-on-1 meeting with one of the two team coaches. Since I was not a player, I could only gather information indirect accounts from players or parents, so my sample size may not be big enough. Evaluation was almost entirely qualitative than quantitative. However, the one consistent theme I heard was that the feedback session wasn’t that great. Comments ranged from advice being too generic (e.g. “go back home work hard, get better and come back and show us what you can do next year”) to not offering any real thoughtful insights to putting the onus on the player to self-evaluate and then mostly agreeing with the player’s evaluation. The consistent theme that I heard was that not enough effort was put into preparing for the feedback session.

In my opinion, this was an area that is an area that the camp could have had a bigger impact.

My personal thoughts are there should be some type of formal feedback process. Ideally with a standardize report card by position (goalie, defense, winger, center). Each player should have received written, detailed feedback on their strengths and key development opportunities (e.g. 3 for each) to help take their game to the next level (which would be personalized to the appropriate for that individual player). I realize this is a tremendous amount of work, requires a lot of coordination between all the coaches and has some pretty significant risks if not properly implemented. And I agree 100% with Kristen Wright the goal is build and maintain player confidence is key. However, given how much players and parents are invested (in every sense of the word) in their hockey development, having some type of tangible, standardized evaluation would be invaluable for these players. To be clear, I thought the week was exceptionally well-run and a great experience for all involved, but this was my one disappointment as a parent.

Since we didn’t get that feedback, I ended up doing it myself using footage from the games available via HockeyTV.  I’ve started break down the video and comparing them to the top players from the U18 camp who made the National Festival. Most parents probably won’t do this level of video analysis, so there will be a gap in direction for many of the players. It’s disappointing that not all the girls will get a deep dive on their performance.

4. Get a benchmark of how good a player is relative to their peer group

My impression was that while the standard deviation at the 15’s Camp was much smaller than at Pacific District camp (where the gap from top to bottom was pretty significant) you could still see big differences from the elite players to some of the marginal players. Depending on the cohesiveness of the team, it was apparent where some players focused more on showcasing their individual talents rather than trusting their teammates and playing as a team.  It was great to see multiple passes between teammates being well-executed to create scoring chances.  However, in many games missed passes and turnover-after-turnover was occurring on a frequent basis, especially for the first couple of games.

One thing that really stood out to me quite frequently after I saw a player make a great play and I would then look-up where they were from, was how often they were a Minnesota High School player from a school I had never heard of. It was the first time I saw first-hand the high level of players produced by Minnesota hockey on the girls side of things.

In terms of benchmarking, if a player was observant of their teammates, they could pretty easily see which ones were more effective than others (and why). And they could also see the ones who either struggled on the skills side of things (e.g. skating, passing, positional play) or playing a team game.  This was on the skater side of things. Since I am no expert on goalies, I am not sure how puck-stoppers would self-evaluate relative to their peers, but hopefully they could see the wide range of styles and abilities that different goalies demonstrated during the goalie-specific sessions.

These were my observations from the USA Hockey U15s girls camp and how I thought it met the objectives for the week from a USA Hockey perspective.  While I wished there was a little more direction on the path to USA Hockey success, I fully understand why this is still the top of player funnel from a national team point-of-view.

In the final post about the 15s Girls camp, I will discuss the camp from a college recruiting perspective.

Categories
Coaching Minor Hockey Parents Youth Hockey

How I Applied Lessons from Belfry Hockey

Darryl Belfry Hockey Book
Darryl Belfry Hockey Book

I loved Darryl Belfry’s book Belfry Hockey, but I don’t believe I was Darryl Belfry’s target audience, because I am neither a hockey coach nor a skills instructor.  As I mentioned in my first post, I’m just a hockey dad. I do not profess to be a hockey expert, but I do have a deep passion for helping my two kids who currently play 14U AA youth hockey. Thus, as a parent, what did I hope to learn from Darryl Belfry’s book Belfry Hockey? And how could I help apply these lessons?

My goals when reading Belfry Hockey:

  1. An understanding of which skills are important for my kids to develop (i.e. “Skills That Separate”)
  2. See which skills aren’t getting developed with their current coaches
  3. Figure out my options on how they can fill in the skills gap

One of Darryl’s key training objectives is to help a player learn a skill they can use “tomorrow”. Therefore, given Covid’s impact on our season, I took on the challenge of applying these insights immediately with my kids. Here are the takeaways from Belfry Hockey that I have recently tried to implement with my kids.

Teaching my son the concept of Platform Skills vs. Placeholder Skills

Is the skill you’re using a placeholder skill or a platform skill? There’s a big difference between the two.

Page 122 – Chapter 11: Skill Continuum

My son is both a late birthday and not an early-developer like several of his teammates. Therefore, there are times when he has seen less ice time due to his physical development. At the same time, Belfry perfectly describes some of the placeholder skills that my kids have seen from teammates in peewee and bantam hockey who would be considered the top players on their teams getting those additional minutes.  

Examples of placeholder skills:

  1. Slap shots off the rush
  2. Using straight-line speed to rush by defensemen along the boards
  3. Banging in rebounds in front of the net

Explaining to a 13-year old that he is building better skills so that two or three years from now he will have more translatable skills to the next level is not simple to understand. But having a framework of “platform vs. placeholder skills” is a simple concept to continually reference until his physical development catches up to his peers.

Tracking High-Frequency Events and Success Rates Using Video

When you’re working with video, you have to be very careful that every player in a game is a like a fingerprint. What we want to see is the detail inside of each fingerprint

Page 162 – Chapter 13 – Video-to-Game Transfer

I record almost every game that my kids play. I use two GoPros to video the game from behind the nets and some rinks also have LiveBarn to provide a third angle. As a result, I have a pretty good asset to begin my analysis with. I used to just look at the quality of each shift individually, but thanks to Darryl Belfry I track the game in a whole new way.

Since reading the book, I have created a spreadsheet to do the following:

  1. Track event frequency and success rates
  2. Edit clips together from 3-4 games by event/game situation so my player can see all the same event-types in a single video (typically 60 – 90 seconds of clips).

Here is a partial summary of an “instance list” from a recent weekend of games for my daughter (who plays defense):

Transfer Tracking: Problem Solving Frequency and Success Rates

Our standard is we want to try and get as many high-frequency elements as possible to be an 8 out of 10 success rate

Page 155 – Chapter 10: Triple Helix: Awareness

Using the metrics from the games, my daughter and I were able to watch each clip and the specific situational context for success & failure. As a result, we were able to see certain patterns emerge that could immediately be worked on, here are a couple of examples:

  1. Trouble when playing the off wing

One pattern we identified right away was that she wasn’t recognizing the handedness of the puck carrier which caused her to attack from a poor angle.  This insight was helped by remembering an article about the 88 Summit with Patrick Kane from a couple of years ago.

2. Linear entry vs. change in angle when carrying the puck in across the blue line.

We are now working on way to cross the blue line to get into the “hot zone” with time and space.

Creating Multiple Options for Specific Situations

We want to make sure as part of the Category 1 skills that once the player has established body position and encounters contact, he’s able to use the contact as an asset – an accelerant or an ability to create separation

Page 145 – Chapter 11: Skill Continuum

With my son, one area we have spent a lot of time working on is in the corner or along the wall in the offensive zone.  We have been focused on adding multiple options for him to have in his toolkit for these situations, specifically:

a. The Kane Push:

b. Reverse Hits

c. Skating through the hands:

d. Using the trap door:

e. The Chuck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwe_vkUdt34

We shall see if he is able to apply any of these new skills into a game situation, but at least I know he has them as potential tools in his toolkit.

As I used to write in my Grade 5 book reviews, I really liked Belfry Hockey and I recommend it to all my hockey friends and coaches. I plan to write one more post about Belfry Hockey so that a few more concepts are brought to life via visuals and video that are a little hard to digest from just reading the book.

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