Power Skating for Young Players and the Value of Box Tag

what's your thought on like I don't say power skating but like skating just like traditional skins I saw it in both products out the practice before I saw the practice this practice that first 20 minutes of power skating is a complete disaster I mean an absolute utter disaster here's how you should be delivering skating in a station but I'm going to work on edge work stops and starts turning agility Edge edges kids in the middle is it they got to get both feet in both feet out they have no idea they're doing power skating but once I make kids skate the circle once I make kids stop and start the blue lines because here's the other part of this so what other things am I delivering here a ton of agility stuff right but what else am I delivering that's not happening in power skating sessions compete I'm forcing to compete what else fun what else decision making because they got to read space so now they're heads up and they're reading when this kid's backs turn they're going in because they're going to read space so now there's a decision-making Pro so I'm this is this is what I call a grand slam power skating is like flying out to first base what I meant is so how many like drills like this type of stuff shooting we should be doing if we do it if we do for instance skating is really important so I would say that everyone in your station is going to have a skating component the focus in this station is skating yeah they just don't the kids don't know what's skating right and and now with this one format I can have a thousand drills off this because what I can say to the kids listen you're on the outside you got to do three crossovers to the left before you go in or you got a stick handle a puck before I go in because now my head's up I leave the puck I jump in I go find another Puck oh I gotta find a partner I gotta make three forehand passes and I can go in there's a million things you can do I have to jump in forward skate backwards in jump forward out I have to Pivot there's a thousand options so I can deliver any type of power skating in a fun format game if I'm teaching just flat out power skating mindless skating they don't do it right they don't do with any intensity there's no decision making there's no fun there's no game like there's no compete not only are you not developing kids you were driving them out of the sport now if I have a 14 15 year old kid who's pretty good and wants to make the next level now we're going to do some power skating because here's the deal you got the passion to do that kind of crap these kids are kids like that yeah it shouldn't be a job it should be fun so we do this to my level like this episode do this at the score do this at the P we do that I do this with our national team kids they love it they go see some of the stuff they can do right I'll tell them they have to be on your inside edges the whole time so they're here and now they're they're duck walking on the outside and they're jumping in on their inside I mean there's a million things you can do one foot you got to go in one foot on land on one foot jump back out on one foot depending on the level of the kid you can do anything you want but they love it and when you love something and you work at it you get better if you're just doing it to do it it's a complete waste of time I tell kids I did a thing last night don't disrespect the Hyde Park last night I said to the kids I said what what this tonight they go well it's Tuesday what time is it they go it's 8 30. I go why are you here what do you mean I go why would you come to the door and go half speed and look for every shortcut in the planet I guess it's a complete waste of time stay at home and be a really good student like you're not going to get better doing this and I was doing fun stuff so what that told me though if that message to me was when those kids come to practice on a daily basis it's boring and they hate it so what their energy levels nothing they just dirt is there because mom and dad drove them there they had no interest in getting better if I can trick him into getting better the energy the passion the fun it just goes through the roof and this becomes you're going to win games and keep kids in because they love it now the cell mom and dad go what is that what the hell is that I'm paying money for you guys to jump over these bumpers that's not hockey that's where you got to communicate and explain to them what we're doing and why we're doing it I think the biggest challenge the biggest discrepancy in his feet their feet yeah so like how do we do more of this like how many what's the ratio drills are focus on stealing I did this last night with some Bantam kids at Hyde Park and they couldn't do it because their agility was awful which told me that they were doing mindless power skating with no purpose like this is not easy to do like I'm afraid to do this as an adult because I might trip and fall and crack my skull or break an arm this is not it looks and they they're falling down they're they're ex what you're doing is you get them to stretch themselves to extend themselves get them out of their comfort zone like I I watched approximately before they were doing skate the circles they were doing like crossovers here crossovers there across and so I say to coaches all the time I go what if a kid in a game like started doing like 10 crossovers to the left why would you do that I said well exactly why the hell are you doing it in practice like when would you ever do 10 crossovers in a row and in reality how important is a crossover like just get to the spot as fast you can and so it's it's it we way overthink this stuff and and and we people think of sport like the football with the combine and this is how you got to do it and it doesn't Translate