And hhe ONLY reason he got cut. Long story short. Coach brought him in after the last exhibition game tryout (scored 2 goals 1 short handed) They were to meet after the game in the dressing room. They pulled out a whiteboard and asked few questions. He failed completely. And coach said that this was one of the hardest cut hes made in a long time ( maybe/maybe not) but he told him some of the things you guys said but to get on the A team and can affiliate. He was upset but hes not a quitter he said "dad lets get to work" love that about him his dedication..thanks for the answers you guys are the best.

Hey Andy, my son picked the (5) things. And hes going to add this to every shift. I wish i could get into your camps. We think the world of you guys

This is excellent advice, spot on! could you elaborate on a couple of things please: if we move down the age (7-8 yo) when there is a Lot more chaos going on in the game - is there anything to add? ie when D rately shares the puck and tries to rush it every time (same as low level men's leagues lol) then what is the effective strategy for forwards? Also for that age group - what are the keys to "watching the game" since younger kinds tend to either just puck-watch or get overwhelmed with all the action on the ice that they can't yet make much sense out of? Thanks!

Hi guys, thanx for the podcast, it is important what you do. Sorry for the slightly longer comment, I just had a conversation about the same thing with my colleagues and used this comment for organizing my thoughts. Hockey IQ is a horrendously overrated feature. I am not even sure it exists. To play as a team is a complex problem. Up till a team starts playing on full ice, there is no reason to try to practice a team play in specially dedicated setups. From my experience up to 12 years of age, there will always be draggers and spectators. The game intelligence of most of the players doesn´t reach further than the end of the stick. The players up to U12 have to first learn individual skills. They are not mentally ready to share the puck. They play 3on3, and they have a maximized time on the puck and that is absolutely right for this age. Everything that looks like a team play is just a result of playfulness without purpose. It is important to encourage playfulness and joy in cooperation with other teammates, every practice should have a GAME section, but it is not crucial for the development of a player. Very often it also depends on the whole psychological profile of a kid. When they know how to skate and control the puck only then they will start raising their heads. From U13 their intelligence and social skills are on a good enough level to make their first attempts of a team play. Then an experienced coach is absolutely crucial. He or she has to start with teaching patterns to the team. And the magic will begin to happen. Even the dummiest hockey players can become team players if they know how to skate and control the puck. And now under the instruction of a coach, they will know when, where and why to go. It is a miraculous thing that always happens, when I teach the first patterns to my team, it is always a variation of breakouts. Step by step, pattern by pattern, all the mess slowly becomes to look like hockey. My players rotate in positions so that they would understand the game from all perspectives. My advice is: Don´t be frustrated if your kid doesn´t understand a team play. Either he or she doesn´t have the right information from the coach or is a late bloomer and will pick it up later. If you want to develop a game sense, encourage playfulness in a child, play games all the time and everywhere. Hockey is not a free-flow game, in most moments it is too quick for a read-and-react approach. Hockey is based on pattern plays. Those pattern plays create time and space so that the team can decide what to do next (on the top level the patterns fluently change from one to another). Learning these pattern plays gives a player the manual on how to solve situations outside the pattern plays, eventually creating new patterns based on the ones already mastered. Creativity is not constrained by the patterns, on the contrary, it is boosted by them. And here it is - the hockey IQ or whatever you want to call it. Most of the situations that happen in a game that we admire for its creativity are situations learned at practices (or their variations), repeated hundreds of times. Only a few players are able to bring extra creativity to the game. Those guys have the best contracts and we all know them.

He picked Willy Nylander to watch