Roger Grillo Presents to Winona Area Youth Hockey Association

there you go Roger hey Roger how's it going hey guys how are you good good let me just make sure I can share uh could whoever the host could you make sure I'm co-host yeah um you should have uh sharing capabilities it's just I tried and it said uh let's see here let's make sure probably just make Roger the host because it's his meeting yep let's go into where'd you do that JJ security no you go and hit the three buttons above his his left oh yeah there we go then he'll just run it that work Roger perfect perfect i' appreciate if you don't kick us out Roger that' be great I will not kick you off big celebrations in Minnesota tonight yeah there is quite a few with the with the twins uh twins yeah sounds like I'm not as crazy of a baseball fan I think we remember at the conference we determined that that baseball socked right JJ so that's untrue Bob Bob joked about it but uh yeah there it's pretty cool for the twins fans it's been what 18 years I think or so since they made it they had lost 18 straight games before last night yeah actually it's funny because the manager is a a good friend of my um my son he's from Rhode Island he's from just okay yep my son played baseball with him growing up that's kind of a fun connection action then yeah yeah I know there's plenty of excited Minnesota fans we we make it to the first round of a lot of stuff so yeah so Roger JJ's got a room in the local arena with some coaches as well so oh cool yeah yep so he's actually on a TV so if people are moving around there we got problem there so just give everyone a couple more minutes and then we'll let you get started we'll kick it off with an introduction as well yeah I'm just letting people in right now perfect believe there go this way if we can mute ourselves without uh causing the problem with you should be able to JJ yeah recording should since Roger's the host it should record I think it was already recording when I first got on yep it shows recording on my end too it'll go into your Zoom file JJ since you don't use zoom a whole lot it should go into your Zoom log give it another minute here or once we hit 7:15 we'll we'll get started all right well Roger will be respectful of your time too so we we really appreciate you joining here um everybody that joined thank you um this is recorded so we'll be able to share it on the parent resources tab for us as well but JJ Pettit uh myself and Brad Hermon Brad's on here as well our hockey director had a chance to meet Roger at the Minnesota hockey director's conference so um got a chance to speak with them the opening night and then spend some time in some sessions so we had reached out to Roger to help talk to Winona coaches here about maximizing Player Development um how we as coaches have a bigger impact than we may realize on these young athletes um and then certainly getting into the modern game a little bit and how it's evolved how it's changed and how we as coaches can adapt to that and affect our Player Development experience for each individual player um then lastly there's just a little bit I'm parent education that weaves through but we're going to utilize this as a parent resource parent education tool as well um and Roger is currently the director of Player Development for USA Hockey so a lot of coverage he does plenty of these um a lot of good resources and we're super grateful to have him here so with that Roger I'll kick it over to you and thanks for being here tonight thank you very much Drew and and thank you to all that uh taking the time to to listen a little bit and talk a little bit of hockey tonight and and just so that you know we're where I'm coming from and my background I'm currently out east I'm just south of Province Rhode Island kind of between Boston and New York City along the coast um but I'm originally from Apple Valley Minnesota grew up there and um came out east to play college hockey at un Main and basically have stayed out east ever since um but still have a lot of family friends and a lot of really good um hockey people that I'm um very close with from your guys home state and um uh I think tonight you know since it's it's really geared towards your Association I I would just say to all of you that we can kind of steer this in any direction you want it to go in where I can be most help of as as far as just letting you know what's happening in other parts of the country um but also what uh what I've seen over the last 14 years working both both on our men's and women's side working with our top coaches and our best athletes uh on our national teams but also working with uh you know different um countries in their their Player Development philosophies and theories particularly with Sweden and Finland um and then also doing some work with uh a actually quite a bit of work with NHL uh teams as well um so uh again this is is your guys night and and I would just use it any way you feel is going to benefit you guys the the the best in terms of being coaches and administrators and leaders uh of your Youth Hockey Association I would say this that Minnesota by far has the best setup of any place in the country what you have in your community- based programming is by far the best um in terms of of the impact on families and on kids uh the the club model has taken over pretty much the rest of the country uh and there's positives to that but there's also negatives to that um too much hockey too soon too serious over coached um expensive uh invasive in terms of travel a lot of negatives there I will say that um the one area that Minnesota I think could get better at and I think what happens is is is I think because it's got such a great tradition of hockey that um people aren't as uh open-minded to maybe looking at things a little bit differently and I think if if you don't look at things a little bit differently then um others will eventually pass you by and so you always almost got to be ready to to see what's the next best thing out there I always use the use the analogy that um um would you go to a dentist that Ed 30-year-old techniques and philosophies and and you think about what the dentist was like when we were kids compared to what it's like now in terms of the pain and invasiveness you know you think about a guy like Bobby or with seven knee surgeries how much longer would he have played if they'd had the tech the technology they have now to do arthoscopic knee surgery um you know Bobby's scars on his knees are about this long and now would be a little pin prick where they go in there and just clean some stuff up so it's just the world's changed and I think it's it's really important that that we as the adults and the people that are in charge of the game for our young kids that we evolve with it um because there are there is a better way to to it's a better M strap and um I've certainly learned that over the last 14 years so having said that what I'm going to do is I'm going to share parts of the presentation that I shared with the group that was at the the the hockey director meeting but again I want this to kind of move in different directions and I can jump off this I can pull video up I got a lot of information um that I can share with the group um in terms of Player Development and and what it should look like on a daily basis um I just kind of mentioned it but understand the modern game it's really important to understand where the game's at right now compared to where it was just even 10 15 years ago certainly in my generation um and uh I had phenomenal coaches at Apple Valley um I had Larry Hendrickson John Harrington just came off the ad80 Olympic team winning gold and Mark deszo who just was the captain at Michigan State and and so I had basically like a college or Pro coaching staff in high school um so I was really fortunate but I would even say in those guys you know Larry's unfortunately passed but John and Mark would tell you because John's now the women's Coach at at Mano that that they've evolved over the last you know 35 years so um you know understanding where the game's at how it how what's the best way to approach young athletes um and then embracing practice I think a a big issue we have in our country right now is the competition the the the drive in competition versus practice right what's happened is training practice has become broccoli for not only the athletes but for the adults as well um and the competition models become like dessert right and because it's entertaining right Mom and Dad get to see their kid play in competition coaches don't have to really be that prepared they can sit on the bench they can open the door they can you know coach up a little bit talk to the kids but practice is a lot harder and and it's more demanding and but that's that's the game Cher particularly even where you guys live where the kids aren't getting nearly as much um unstructured play time as as certainly the generations before them everything's over coached over structured and everything they do in in sport and in school is dictated by the adults and so what we've really done is we've really taken away the the best teacher of all and that's the pond or the or the outdoor rink um and and that's for the most part's gone now people have backyard rinks and people do go to the local rinks but not like it used to be I remember going my my mom and dad are from hian and my grandfather ran the out to a rink up there and I can remember going back at Christmas time and there'd be there'd be 50 60 70 kids on the rink and I was so excited when my son was about 12 we went back to Minnesota this would have been about 10 years ago and so excited to get him out to Grandpa's rink and and have him skate there was one kid I was telling them all the stories were driving up from Minneapolis up to Hib I'm like oh you just wait till you see this this is amazing it's just going to be hockey heaven and we went there there was one literally one kid and I was just devastated and and so what it told me was it's you guys still have the best setup but even that's changed and so what you do in the inside structured world world is really critical and I tell coaches and administrators all the time probably the only opportunity your children have to get better is in your practices and so you've got to really make sure you're hitting Grand Slams you can't be hitting singles you know those practices have to be a nine 10 out of 10 because you can't mail in a practice because that's an opportunity wasted and and these kids don't get much opportunity to get better and I don't care if you're I mean you're looking at a banon B player in in Apple Valley um and I didn't make my high school team tall as a junior and so you know that doesn't happen very much anymore but Player Development is for all levels I always tell administrators and coaches you have two responsibilities build passion and help the kids get better if you do those two things you're probably going to win more games than lose you're going to keep kids in the game longer and as they get to a critical stage in their development they're going to be more willing to do the extra stuff and that's really important it's critical and so I showed this video to the coaches and I said when you walk into the rink on a daily basis in when only youth hockey when you walk into the rink what does practice look like and and I'll just show you the differences and what's important about that that video is that so many of our practices in US sports are coach centered they're designed with what we call blocked drills meaning that the pattern that the kids going to skate in or perform in is determined by the coach they're going around cones or open space where there's nobody's going to push back and there's no decision- making whatsoever and so if you're if I tell you those first two you know practices that you saw in that video player development is probably a four out of 10 just by adding conflict or competition or a more game likee situation Player Development is going to be up around eight you're doubled it and so what is what does what's one known as philosophy when it comes to developing hockey players on a daily basis I can do some stuff around cones I can do some stuff around uh in open space I can do blocked drills and what a block drill is is the patterns determined by the coach there's really nobody that's going to push back there's really no decision making and there's really no accountability and so watch what in on a given day what's really happening um and so just to have a mindset that that we're going to really attack this and attack it seriously um and so for us these five aspects need to happen every day every day these five um things have to happen in every practice and if I were to rate those five things no fun is number one it's got to be a priority if it's not they not having fun they're not getting better you're not building passion the second thing there's got to be constant decision making it's got to be uncomfortable but safe and positive but it's got to be uncomfortable when it comes to uh the mental and emotional aspect of pract practice should never be easier than the game but if I walk into a rink which I'll be I do a lot and I evaluated practice I can guarantee you it's way easier than the game and that makes absolutely no sense if you think about it if kids are going to really get better why would we ever make training easier than the game especially when it comes to making reads and understanding the game and um you know making decisions and and and putting them in game likee situations so number one would be fun constant decision making be two looks like the game will be number three that balance between challenging an athlete but making or making it too hard is really a fine line and then Puck touches represents rep repetitions not necessarily Puck repetitions but just repetitions overall so the the five elements of a great practice that's got to happen every time they step through the door and so the the practice planning or the preparation by the coaches is really critical now I'll tell you you can go on USA Hockey mobile coaching app you can go online the practices are already done for you based on the age group and you don't have to follow them to a te but if you follow them your kids are going to get better and those five elements are going to be there in pretty much everything doesn't have to be every single time but I would say probably 80 to 90% of the time you want to check off those five boxes okay and I I shared with the the the the people in in in uh Plymouth a couple weeks ago some numbers that were done by um Ontario minor hockey up in Canada one efficient practice will give a player more skill development than 11 games so one well-run practice is worth 11 games now think about the commitment for a game especially you guys got a pretty good setup but you might you might travel you know 30 40 minutes to a game but think about the amount of time that's committed on a game day and say you have 12 kids on your team right say you have three forward lines and 4D if you really break down how much game time your kids get on a game day it's a third of that ice time to start with and that's if nobody takes a penalty and everybody does the same length of shifts so you're going to commit a kid for probably three hours on a Saturday and Sunday for literally about 10 minutes of activity and no other aspect of their life would you stand for that there's no way you would sign up for a piano lesson that cost you 100 bucks an hour and your child went there for three hours and they touched the keys for 10 minutes you would be banging down the door demanding your money back yet we stand in a rink and we see the dysfunctionality and we cheer it all day long and that's fine but just understand your kids aren't going to get better we need to have games they need to have fun doing them but it's not Player Development right um 99% of the feedback coaches give players is when they have the puck but ironically players only have the puck in their stick for 2% of the game so the other 98% of the game they play without the puck how are they getting better and they're not and so the optimal number of players in the drill is anything Two on Two and above if we're doing one onone we're not getting the other critical stuff which is play off the puck and all the decisions all the hard work all the routes all the reads off the puck is really what's going to determine how good a hockey player you are because that's 98% of the game and so there's just so much so many little things that go into Player Development it's not just the physical aspect it's the emotional it's the mental right it's what it means to be a good teammate it's how to deal with failure it's how to deal with adversity it's all that stuff that's going to not only help them and in in sport but it's going to help them in life um and so we've got to make sure we're cognizant of all that right we try to get our coaches to understand that if I'm coaching the PEB team and they give me 12 players I'm not coaching the 12 I'm coaching the individual player I'm coaching 12 different players because what each player needs at a different time in their path is completely different it's not the same how I deal with the top third of the team is much different than how I'm going to deal with the bottom thirdd and the big mistake the biggest mistake that's made in US Sports competition does not drive development when I'm 10 years old I can go up to the Excel Center and sit in the wild walk room and practice with the wild I'm not going to become an NHL competition does not drive development in Youth Hockey Youth Sports what's going to drive development is those five elements and particularly having fun but the balance between challenging the player and building confidence if I'm constantly chasing and I'm not touching the puck you're better off being in the top third of the B Team than being in the bottom third to The A Team just from a development standpoint and so you really got to look at it how am I running practice is my best players always going up against my other best players or is my best players going up against my weaker players and if I if I if I put the weaker players together in a station is Mom and Dad going to get upset because they're not with the better players and the better players are going to drag them along and make them better that's that's not how development Works development is an individual player um uh program now when they get to 14 15 16 yeah competition can help Drive development but at 14 15 and 16 the responsibility for development is now the athletes when the athletes younger it's Mom and Dad and Coach when the athlete gets older it's not all the athletes and so how I handle the young athlete and the environment I put them in in or her in is really critical to them being able to handle the responsibility for their own development moving forward any questions so far okay when we talk to NHL coaches we talk to our national team coaches on both the men's and women's side when we talk to NHL Scouts coaches what separates the good from the Great it's hockey sense it's decision- making so are we putting the kids in situations where they're having to make reads and they're having to make decisions consistently that's what the pond was so great at the pond was always forcing you to make decisions and and listen skating is really important part of the game but I spent a lot of time at the outdoor ranks in Minnesota I never did Edgeworth I never did po SK I went and played and if we lost the puck we made a tape ball and if got too cold and we tired of playing without a puck we went home we didn't start doing Edge work we got our skating through play and through competition but the decision making happened over and over and over and over again and there was no right or wrong it was us learning you know what worked and what didn't work based on uh the situation now on the outdoor rink there was some vertical integration in terms of age and ability level right and so the one big mistake we've made in US Sports is we put all the same birth year you guys still have the two-year window for most of your teams which is awesome but in most parts of the country it's the you know 2010s all play together and then the best 15 20 T are all on the same team right so we don't really have any vertical integration why vertical integration is important at a young age isn't necessarily the competition it's the role model it's the rabbit it's go do it like that kid's doing it right so if I have an association like Winona and I'm have a might practice but I have some mites who have brothers or sisters that are peee or bantams I ask those kids to come to practice with their gear on and I say to those peew and bantams you're going to get another practice you're going to do the same thing these my kids are doing but you're just going to do it faster better and stronger and they're going to watch you and they're going to pick up some things and they're going to try to mimic you it's a role model it's kind of it's kind of disappeared in our culture um and it's kind of an unfortunate situation because it's safe right I can go compete against a player that I know isn't going to take my spot and I can chase them around in practice but I know they're not going to be on they're not going to be on the ice on game day and it's somebody's brother or sister it's mine that's a healthy thing right if that makes sense so when we talk about skill development I always say to coaches I say when the players don't do what you want them to do or they're making all these mistakes or you get frustrated on Saturday or Sunday during the game is it because of the player or is it because of the coach and I would tell you 90% of the time it's because of the coach because they designed drills that look like this obviously one of the best American born players ever to play the game Patrick Kane unbelievable technique with his hands but if you notice where his head's at and what the drill is asking him to do it's it's actually forcing him into a dangerous situation when it comes to game day when his head's down and so this has limited this has limited impact on his development because the pucks don't move the pucks aren't going to take the puck away nobody's going to try to knock his block off because the Puck's 6 foot three and not an inch off the ice so this has limited um impact on him being a good hockey player what makes Patrick Kane great is his ability to scan the ice make a read and then apply the technique of his hands to make the right player to possess the puck but my technique's important my skating my stick cing my shooting but what's more important is the read that comes before that then I apply the technique but we're technique driven we're going to do 30 minutes of power skating before we practice where there's no decisions there's no conflict there's no chaos there's no push back and so I'm going to do a 100 crossovers and I'm going to be the greatest crossover in the history of hockey but it doesn't make me a hockey player and so just thinking about the balance between those five elements and why fun decision making and game like is so critical and there's a there's a famous saying in soccer all great players are great jugglers of the ball but all great jugglers of the ball are not great players right and so what makes a really good soccer player is obviously the ability to handle the ball but also the ability to find Space to read the play to play with um teammates to to run routes off the ball to get open or to defend all that other stuff that's way way more important than the ability to juggle the ball but teaching a kid or or putting a kid in the drill where they're juggling the ball all the time that's easy that's the easy part right because these four roles are what should happen in every every drill we do right offense with the puck defense on the puck and then offense and defense away from the puck and I would tell you that 98% of the games played on the bottom twoo so we putting kids in those situations where they have to make decisions and work hard so that they can get the puck more often and so I was showing the coaches some drills and some things that are done in practice so if you notice here for the coaches if you notice here the players before they started they had they're not facing the puck and that's because when the coach spots the puck in the drill we want them to turn and have to make a read we don't want them to stand and make hockey decisions in this particular game this is the University of Nebraska Omaha where we ran some practices and did some videotaping I drew two lines to simulate a neutral zone and I'm trying to get the players to understand how to use the width of the rink so the rule of the game is to things one you can't go offside and you can't carry the puck over two lines the Puck's got to move so if I carry the puck over the first line from my defensive end right so Red's defensive ends at the bottom of the screen and Blue's defensive ends at the bottom of the screen if I carry the puck over the first line I got to look to find somebody to to to to move the puck too and the only way you're going to be good offensively as an individual or a team is if you can force defensive rotation if I don't force defensive rotation I'm easy to play against and so I got to learn how to use the width of the rink right but often times our kids especially a young age get the puck on the breakout and they go straight up the rink and they attack the defenseman that's right in front of them and it's just not going to work at the next level it still happens with a lot of our best players but that's why drills like this are critical and I have a simple rule if you don't follow the rules of the game I'm going to yell new Puck and I'm going to take the puck away from your team and I'm G to give it to the other team and you're going to have to defend to get it back before you get a chance to do it again because I'm not going to reinforce a bad habit if I want my dog to sit I can't give it the treat if it doesn't sit because then it will never sit but oftentimes we just get through practice with the kids doing everything wrong and we give them the opportunity to have their turn in hockey it's never your turn it's never your turn in hockey it's one of the greatest things about our sport it's not like basketball it's not like football right you give up a touchdown now you get the ball you give up a basket now it's your turn to have the ball in hockey you give up a goal you got to win a faceof possess it and go the other way it's never your turn but in practice we often bail out laziness poor decision- making and poor execution with an opportunity in hockey the opportunity has to be earned so we need to create that environment positively in practice if that makes sense this s chat that was just me Roger I was let people know they can use the reaction to raise their hand if that if they feel comfortable or to type in a chat or uh just so they they can engage if they've got a question yeah so I'll let this play out a little bit you can see we spot the puck to the goal you get them involved these kids really struggl there's like seven you know kid went offside we yelled offside they don't get it they think it's still their turn like no no no no no no it's BL Puck it's bloes Puck they finally figured it out we're not going to bail them out can't go offside you can't carry the puck you can't dump the puck you got to make a play and they really struggle with the concept they start to get better but that's part of coaching right the patience and the accountability to the right stuff you can't just let them take the shortcut because it's not the other team in the game on Saturday and Sunday is not going to let him take the shortcut okay so just an idea of what practice should look like right and so just to show you the evolution of what can happen instead of starting a drill with a dump in we're GNA start a drill with scrum right start a drill with the scrum on the board and then we're GNA do is we're going to um send the other other players other two players on each team are going to be sent in at different times so now we're adding layers to the game right now it's a quick one-on-one now whoever gets in there first has to read do we have the puck do we need to support it all that kind of stuff so this is what in my opinion prati 80% of your kids practice should look like this it's it's game like there's constant decision making I can make sure my best players are going against my best players very easily there's a lot of things I can do off of this okay there's another little drill little one-on-one now these kids play pass until the whistle blows Whoever has the puck when the whistle blows is on offense Whoever has the puck doesn't have the puck is on defense so there's no pattern it's all readed the goalie has to make a read right so there's no there's no predetermined who's on defense who's on offense it's all based on situations and decisions this is a little one second game in the neutral zone where everybody's playing and if you notice we have a goalie playing like a regular player out here right they're handling the puck they're competing they they're having fun as well the goalies that aren't in the game are out here in the line too there's a goalie right here who's a passer so this everybody in the game can only have the puck in their stick for a second so they got to use their teammates on the outside or they have to use their teammates in the middle of the game and it's just a three on three or four on four whatever numbers you want to use and as as you evolve these drills what I do with better older players is I will I'll put red and blue I'll stagger them in between each other so now not only do can I use my own teammates but I got to really pick my head up and find them rather than just throwing it to an area because right now they can cheat the game because they know their teammates are all on one side of the rink right but if I now put them every other player they have to really find their teammate they can't just throw it blindly so you always got to be careful with however you constitute practice that you're not reinforcing bad habits which would be a blind pass right if I stay this way the whole time they're just going to throw blind passes to the outside because that's their relief if that makes sense and the last thing we talked about I talk about this a lot is skating is a huge part of the game but can I find areas in the game hidden Pockets where we can do skating without shutting it down and doing Line skating and focusing on just one particular aspect ECT of skating so here we're going to do pivots and you have to do pivots around your stick before you can enter the game okay so now it's how you enter the game is based off your Technique and your work ethic so all kinds of little things you can do in practice to really challenge your players I have players exit drills and do skating all the time now I have them staggered there's two players up front there's one player out back so they're going to come into the game layers right they're not all going to come in at the same time which is the part of the game so any questions there anybody have anything they want to discuss or talk about uh my hands up I didn't hit the reaction button uh my name is Dylan I'm one of the one of the M coaches before I forget so you brought up the Omaha we got coach Kemp's son-in-law on this call too so I don't know if you knew he would be here um I know keer I've known keer for a long time keer and fact keer made a huge mistake probably 30 years ago it came down between with me and David Lon to be the assistant at Wisconsin and he took David and then you know what this this is the curse this is this is the curse for for Coach SAU and Coach Kemp I I was at the University of Vermont the time my next recruit was Timmy Thomas oh wow and they took David they took David because he was a goalie guy because they needed the goalie they wanted to keep that tradition so yeah no I know I've known keer for a long time great guy well clearly you guys are still friends so gu oh yeah I guess no hard feelings I saw him when we were there so um so as a might coach you know you talk about and I we fully embrace the idea that all a lot of these skills are going to be learned and applied during game play um but you know even even looking at those USA Hockey ADM practice plans there is some block drills yep and so I guess my question is is there a place for that stuff when you're trying to demonstrate the time to use certain skating skills and then hopefully work in a progression where you put them in a situation where they can make the decision to use them or is is the game play G to be the key for everything so for me all it's it's situational how many practices a week do the kids get right and um where are the kids at age and so I would say to you if if I've only got two practices a week and my kids are 12 and under I'm GNA do some block stuff but 80 to 85% of my practice is going to be like what you just saw and I'm there's gonna be block stuff within it like that skating yeah I like I like that a lot right and so but there's purpose for the skate And as they're skating they're they're watching what's happening and they're making reads okay the the guy next to me on my team he's he's a halfway he's two steps ahead of me on the on the the pivots so I know he's going to have better chance to be first touch so I'm going to move to a place to support him so it's almost like reading a four check right and so not only am I getting my skating but I'm I'm making I'm making the player make decisions while they're skating and that's the most critical part to me one one of my our former co-workers Tai Hennis is the assistant coach for the Penguins and he started out as the skills coach for the Penguins and and he's Crosby's like Tai is Crosby's Binky Ty will never do a single drill with any of the penguins that doesn't have some type of decision in it now most of it might be blocked if he's just working with one guy but he's going to force a decision they're going to go somewhere because of a read They're not just going to go somewhere to go somewhere they're going to go to their backhand or their forehand or they're going to turn to the left they're going to turn to the right not because they're working on turning the right or left but because the decision forced the move which is that makes sense so I think there a balance Dylan I think I think the the danger that the reason why I think it's so important is the danger that I see is it's way out of balance the other way yeah yeah and that's because the coach has to give up some control yeah and oftentimes our ego gets in the way and we want to control everything and we want to tell everybody how to play and when to go and how to go and why to go and that doesn't that that doesn't that's not coaching yeah I mean I would I I agree there's a lot of ego in in coaching and parenting too um one of the things with with the competitive play that I I worry about is that if you have a lower skill level player and it's not always you can't always put kids with other kids who have the exact same skill but then then they're watching the play too much how do you solve that though I don't know so if you're coaching the Russian Red Army team back in the 80s 90s and you had Larry onof and maerov and fatis off and feder off far superior than the bottom half of the team how do you make sure those guys are continuing to get better and how do you make sure your weaker players are are actually touching the puck and getting some reps I don't know you never go one-on-one you never go one-on-one H larionov goes one against two lar onov and federov go two against four so now you're forced to play off the puck I'm the best player on the team in the game I'm probably gonna have the puck a lot now in practice I'm forced to play off the puck I'm forced to Def right yeah you hand you handicap those better players to to even the playing field nailed you nailed the most important word in the art of coaching and that's handicap you handicap your best players attributes that's why that's why we've been pushing cross- ice hockey forever because if you really think about it the kids who dominate little kid hockey are the best skaters not necessarily the best players you don't give a skater a good skater ice you take away their ice because now they're forced to use their head in their hands yeah because at some point everybody's going to catch up you can't you can't just dominate with your feet the beauty of McDavid and Ma and and McKinnon and and Kane and those guys are they're they're physical specimens who can skate who have great technique but they're really really smart hockey players that's the Su that's that's the that's the generational player if I said to you you guys all grew up in in a hockey community if I were to say to you in high school hockey banam hockey if I were to ask you to give me a body type of who the smartest players are who would they be smaller guys Johnny hockey Johnny gadr Marty St Louis who I coached right for four years I've known Marty since he was 15 why why are the smaller players the smartest because they have to make decisions they were handicapped y with the size yeah they were naturally handicapped so I say to all my friends I say I just pray for your kid to be smaller and slower than everybody else because most coaches have no idea how to handicap and that's what practice is for practice is for getting better I got a question for you Roger Moran here uh another mic coach um on the topic of of reads or decision making how how do you co do you coach that or is it more of an experience for the kid that you that you build an environment for that um if you can talk throw back at you what was your first name again Marty Marty good name um if I were to say to you Marty what um when do you think you need to step in with a player what would your answer be uh I don't want you to I'm not trying to put you in the spot because this is this is a really good conversation it's a great question if I see a confusion or a disengagement to what's going on okay so if now I'm gonna talk to you as Marty the player and and you're on a bench in a game or you're in practice and every time you show me that as a coach I come skating over and I start talking to you what's that going to do to you not sure if so my son when he was in seventh grade was struggling with math bad he'd come home he'd sit at the dining room table next to me and my wife and he would have that look of just bewilderment like I have no idea what I'm doing here and he would sit there and he'd puff and puff and da d d da and I never once bailed him out never once because I'd rather have him get a d but let it be his work than me give him the answers and get an A because that's learning struggle the struggle we've got to figure out a way for our kids to struggle safely positively and productively so how you react and if you're constantly trying to coach them up every time they make a mistake they're going to turtle and they're going to shut down so if I'm a coach I'm going to look for patterns I'm going to look for consistent consistent things that happen positively and negatively and that's what I'm going to base my I'm gonna step back more than I'm gonna step up because especially at eight oh my God I mean that they they I hopefully they're making thousands of mistakes in every game they play and I guarantee you if you ask them a question what you think they probably already got the answer they probably know more than we give them credit for we just don't need to get in their Grill every time they do it and and I might go up to him and say so what what did you think on that play well you know I go what are you gonna do next time well I think I'm going to try this perfect try it right let them it's like it's like farming plant the seed you water it you fertilize it take the weeds out takes a while for that plant to grow but you can't speed Farm because if you speed Farm the crop dies but what we do in US Sports and with young kids is we try to speed Farm the hell out of them because we're trying to build the best 12-y old in the world and not many best 12y olds end up being the best 16y old they usually burn out and and don't don't make it there's exceptions but for the most part most part the best players are players that had some adversity or struggle in their past great that's a great great question hey Roger JJ here again so as a as a parent thinking about this stuff how can we put ourselves in a position to to support that development long term because there's a lot of forces pulling us whether it's private last lessons or opportunities to to control lives and I think you use the term snowplow um in in our our meeting but how do we balance that while still feeling like we're contributing positively right everybody's afraid of not doing enough and um not that's real but it's a feeling we have it's a great that's a great question and one thing I would say to you as from a coaching side is you're dealing with somebody else's kid you're not going to stick if you see a mama bear you're not going to go punch one of the Cubs in the face because you're probably going to get attacked so you respect the fact that you're dealing with somebody else's child and how they deal with that might be different than what you might deal with it right that's one two I think when it comes to Parenting in sport you're there to support to be positive to lend a hand but to like listen and I hate to sound like an old fart but like I think my dad's generation their parents never even went to the games like they they didn't even know they were in a sport right and then it swo we got more and more we got more and more invested because the cost went up and the time went up and so now we're at everything we're at practices we're at everything right which is fine that's great that's great to support but it's the conversations that you have it's the car rides home that you have and I don't ever begrudge somebody for wanting their kid to be the best but again you can't speed farm that and so we get impatient and we try to we think we're helping but it can have real long-term uh consequences usually parents figure it out with their second or third or fourth child but by the time the third one comes around they're like I'm not doing that again I'm going to let them go somebody else to the games I'm going to let them somebody else take them to practice but we get excited with the first one because we you know we're right there we're involved in it all that stuff which is great there's positives to it for sure but I think we just got to be cognizant that um it's a game and and it's amazing how the little kids they might play terrible and five minutes after the game it's over and we'll hang on to it for a week right maybe we can learn something from the kids and then you also told us a story about the smartest goalie you ever met um had skated for a while or something yeah so Timmy Thomas played to me that's a story I was telling about with Wisconsin and Timmy you know played for us at Vermont um Timmy was a goalie he skated out he didn't really start playing goalie till he was like 12 grew up in Michigan nobody wanted him I got him as a 20-year-old and um nobody wanted him after four years and he's one of six goalies to win two vzas a k Smite and a Stanley Cup so he's he's in the US Hockey Hall of Fame but he's this close to being in the hockey hall of fame um he just didn't have play a long time because nobody believed in him because he was he was unorthodox but what made Timmy so great was two things one he was ultra competitive he took every shot in practice like it was game seven of the Stanley Cup finals and he read the game better than any goalie I've ever seen so his ability to understand which way if it was a two-on-one somebody was coming off his backside he knew which way they shot and he could read with their hips and their their their feet in their eyes where the puck was gonna if the puck was going to be moved and he read all the information that his defenseman was given him based on where they were trying to move Force the puck and then what the the shooter or the puck carrier was information he was given right so the ability to read the information hips eyes shoulders where the Puck's being held right facial expressions all that kind of stuff all that information that comes in the computer and then spits out a decision that's really important that's why deception on the other side selling misinformation is so critical right head fakes decks where you know fake shot fake hip Turn fake heels that kind of stuff that's why the best players have a ton of deception offensively that's why that's why a guy like Patrick Kane or a guy like uh you know if you think about a guy like right now like you know mcdavid's a little bit different because he's just he's physical specimen but you think of a smaller guy like like panarin with um New York he's not very fast he's not big at all he's not super Dynamic but people back off of him because they don't know what he's going to do like he's selling him he's selling him past but then all a sudden this pucks off his stick you know Paul uh Cole coffields like that a lot you know Cole's I I I know a lot I see Cole a lot because I I'm very close with Marty and watch all their games and go up there you know once a month to to kind of be with them and Cole's a perfect example of a guy who gets space but isn't very big he's pretty good skater he's pretty dynamic got a elite shot but there's a lot of deception in this game so Defenders back off because they're just not quite sure where to go because he's selling the misinformation all the time can we teach deception oh God yeah yeah in fact I would tell you that like if you want to work on change of Direction you want to work on uh here I'll show you an example of it here's a really simple example of how you teach how you don't necessarily teach it but um you're going to you kids are going to do it naturally so if I if I want to work on skating right I'm GNA create this little box and I'm going to tell the kids on the outside you got to get two feet in and two feet out to get a point and if you get tagged you're in the middle and so what ends up happening is if you watch the kids can you guys see that no not yet okay my bad my bad I'd probably help if I shared it can you see it now we're good now yes we can little box with bumpers you got to get two feet in two feet out to get a point without getting tagged now you watch the kid's head fakes you watch a kid like fake like he's going to go in the box and then come back out you watch the kid on the inside fake like he's going to go to one kid then go to the other kid like there's a lot of little deception that starts to happen with the kids naturally and they got got to scan the ice because you know they they got to know where the space is they got to know where to go without getting tagged now they're working on balance agility coordination change of Direction like there's your power skating they just don't know they're doing power skating right and so I'm looking at this going this is too easy now watch the deception now watch the little shoulder fakes head fakes I'm GNA sell I'm GNA go one way I'm gonna go the other way right that's deception so it doesn't have to be Tau your kids are going to naturally do it because they want to win so the the the the drill or the exercise teaches it right and so another example of that would be um you know uh I don't know if I have it here my bad like a bumper tag right right where one kid's on one side of the bumper the other kid's on the other side of the bumper and one kid's got to get around it and tag them well there's going to be shoulder fakes head fakes there's gonna be all kinds of misinformation that both are going to throw to try to get the kid to buy into a certain place to go they're going to trap them and so that's the kind of little stuff that you can do where they're having they're having fun there's decision making you got a concept of deception which is a pretty deep concept for little kids right and then they're they're they're competing and they don't know they're doing it's I call it Flintstone vitamins they're doing something good for them they just don't know what's good for them once you put them on the goal line and put them in lines and do Edge skating or power skating click they tune out they're like okay I mean just think about this mentality those of you that are in the corporate world think about if you're marketing director said we're going to do some marketing we going to do some commercials it's going to be a minute long commercial but the first 30 seconds is going to really suck but the last 30 is really good and if you hang in for the first 30 you're G to get a really good second3 hey kids first 20 minutes of practice is going to really suck it's not going to be fun but we need to do it and if you work hard we'll go do some fun stuff at the end not probably not a good way to get kids into buy into practice maybe you do it the other way maybe you start with game right get them excited about practice get them to buy in give them ownership so it's just some ways some things some of the things we do is just because of tradition and if you really if you really dissected it makes no sense at all Roger I I got one for you too for so something we get you know questions on right or we think of as coaches too is these station-based practices perfect designs on paper right um and then incorporating you know systems is a word we hear a lot in Youth Hockey what's your take on systems introducing that at a certain level you know what age level is that more appropriate for great question and I'll show you what that looks like um um so I'll show you a perfect example of that so if I wanted to do power play penalty kill right now the blue team's on power play the white team's on kill the white team is got four the blue team's got five the Nets are up because I don't want the kids the reason why I move the Nets is because our kids you use the lines on the ice for spacing so their Gap and where they go is based off the markings on the ice and not the read of where the defender and my teammates are which is completely wrong because that's might be the worst place to go the fifth player for the white team is behind the goal line they get it they give it back they've got to support it now it's a power play Breakout the punishment for blue being bad on the power play is they now have to change four new Blues come out to kill the fifth player goes behind the goal line so you have to earn your chance to be on the power play by doing a good penalty kill every kid's on Power Play Every Kid's on penalty kill and we don't bail anybody out right we set rules if if if you score you make it you take it you don't give the puck out back to blue because if they know you're going to bail them outter not going to work hard they got to earn the puck and so the white team here forces a bad shot it goes wide of the net they missed the net right Puck goes down blue regroups white has to change now Blue's on power play there's your systems there's your concept right penalty kill power play spacing Puck support Puck possession retrievals because the Puck's life till it goes over the goal line so all the stuff that happens in a game in a game and I'm not telling them where to go they're they're going on the ice penalty kill and power play based on the teammates the opponent and the puck and there I've played this game with NHL players where it'll go up and back and up and back and'll turn it over 10 times and finally what ends up happening is they get in line and they're yelling at each other like listen I'm sick of I'm sick of going out for 5 seconds on the power play and I got to kill the next time and I got a kill for three minutes because the other team's doing it right they're using each other they're they're supporting they're moving the puck and we're getting it one gu is trying to go in and in and turning it over and now I got now I gotta get it off the ice knock it off so now the players become the coach so you can teach or not so much teach but you can work on any system going any Direction with any number of players in practice and it doesn't have to be broken down into what it looks like in a game that that setup right there is a thousand times more fun a thousand times more productive and and kids are going to get better that much faster Roger just to follow up on that real quick um would you so something like that would you run into practice and tape it and then watch it with the kids just so that they can what age I I'm thinking bantams to high school oh yeah bantams in high school absolutely what I would do with bantams in high school is I would actually get as much tape NHL anything power play penalty kill for check faceof plays anything so here's what we do at our naal camps what we do at National camps is I I come up with some themes and then we we do this we show our best players in in the world so 17 this is a 17 National camp where we get our coaches to understand these are pro coaches in college division one coaches we force them to do a player centered video session where the coach sits in the back not up front he runs the machine but he asks questions and let the kids talk about what they see so that he's not giving them all the answers or she's not giv all the answers so this is layers to get players to understand layers so I'm GNA get tape and get them to understand that if I'm going to be good on offense I can't take the puck from here all the way to there in a straight line I've got to force defensive rotation right and so understanding that I need to know what's happening in front of me what's coming up on each side of me and what's coming up behind me how do I play the game in layers right and all the routes that are run by the players off the puck and so I'm going to just show video of the best players in the world doing good things and doing bad things right how to attack good space and how to find the next layer in a game so that's how I'm going to teach some of that conceptual stuff is by showing stuff like this because the beauty of using the only negative of taping your own practice in my opinion is when kids especially younger kids are watching and they're not on there they're disengaged and the quality of the video is not very good it's hard to tell who's who and you can actually really crush a kid because I used to think I was a pretty good skater until back in the 80s we watched video and that quality was brutal and everybody looked bad so this is HD like this this is like the best best video you can show because they can see clearly what's what's happening happening and and you can go on YouTube and you can find stuff that's uh like coaches view so it's up top and you can see everything develop great question and yes starting at the age of about 13 14 I would incorporate a video session or two a week and I would have a theme to it hey Roger you mention as far as corrective action taking away the puck I think it's your favorite saying is new Puck Y what about when we're talking not about player issues as far as on the ice but we're talking attitude how we treat others teenagers suck we know that but we have we're trying to build an expectation respect in our in our in our association and on the ice does new Puck work to that extent or is there other things new Puck new Puck works for that a little bit but I would say that that you you have to be very um upfront about what your standards are and you have to be consistent and you can't look the other way because it's your best player um and you have to have a conversation it can't be a dictatorship you got to give ownership to the players and I would say starting at the age of again 13 14 there'd be a lot of conversations about what it means to be a good teammate and I would ask the players what do you what do you think it means to be a good teammate right because at the when when you're talking about squirt hockey like used to drive me nuts when parents would all be buzzing in the lobby about Joey who was by far the best skater on a team how Joey's a puck hog and I used to say to him what do you want Joey to do stop and wait for everybody else to catch up to him like what what do you want Little Joey to do like Joe you put Joey in a full ice game he's a thousand times faster than anybody else on the rink he's aggressive he gets the puck he's gonna attack and he's probably gonna beat the other opponent and he's gonna get a breakaway that's not Joey's fault Joey should not be slowing down if there's nobody in front of him to look for a teammate coming up behind him that's an that's so unfair to a 10-year-old kid that's not his fault that's the format's fault that's why the year that's why the sweds still play half ice at 15U for half the season to stop that type of behavior it's not the kids's fault it's the format's fault and if you actually taught Joey to slow down and stop and wait there's going to come a point where some coach is g to get really mad at him when he's 15 16 where he should attack that space because that's the right play now you're making a decision like that's why I hate games where the coaches say you have to make three passes why would I pass up a good scoring chance to make another pass that's a decision you made a decision for the player that they have to make a Pass that might not be the right play that might be the absolute wrong play in that situation let the players decide now you could put in a rule that says we're going to play a cross ice game and a goal is worth two points and every pass you make to get to the goal is an addition point so now they can decide but a goal is worth more so if there's space they're going to attack it but if there isn't now they're going to make a pass they know they're getting an extra point so there's other ways to skin that cat to get kids to think about moving the puck and not necessarily putting in a rule that says like you have to do this to get to that because now you made the decision not the athlete and you want to empower the athlete to make the decision because you're not going to be out there in the ice in the game I hope that get get you kicked out pretty quick well you can get yourself in some trouble for sure I've seen some coaches that want to get on the ice they got their foot up on the Dasher they're halfway there you know Roger around the coaches like that's a good point to right like what's what's the demeanor for a coach in Youth Sports right what's a recommendation from you to to be a good role model on the bench for games and and how you talk to the kids how you approach them so if I were to ask you those of you that played any sport who's in charge of practice day coach coach who's in charge of game day should be players players the game is the Players it's not the coach what you do in practice should dictate what happens in in a game if you're gonna stand there and scream every detail and talk to him after every shift and and think coaching isn't talking you see the best player coaches in any sport they say very little during a game right they're not in the players faces 247 and in fact nowadays they've got monitors at their feet in the NHL and they got the iPads over the place and I know coaches that have now put rules in you can only look at the iPad like twice a period because the players comeing off the ice and they're watching their last shift and they're not thinking about what happens they're living in the past and not moving on to the Future right so um the game day is the Players so what you say when you say it how you say it can have a huge impact I would say on game day listen support be positive um look for patterns and and ask questions don't give answers so building on patterns and and giving it to the kids what you take on like pregame stretching routines like that or pre-practice routines like we so some get crazy some don't do any all I'm just it's kind of an interesting aspect of team sport it's a great question I'm going show you a if I can pull up real quick so we strongly strongly strongly encourage um uh some type of warm up warm down and some type of activity um for kids before practice after practice before games and after games and I'll I'll just show you I'll show you a I think it's in this presentation just bear with me for a second I'll show you what the uh the fins do I I go over to Finland quite a bit um this is you see that yep so on the left hand side would be their 14y olds I help run their National 14 camp at times um and um so this is uh on the leftand side is what they do at 14 which is all body weight agility coordination and balance and then on the right hand side is a small village up above the Arctic Circle named Roman eki it's a group of 10 year- olds in the lobby of the rink they do this 35 minutes before every practice twice a week now I ran the on Ice practice and I thought these kids were going to be about 15 minutes late because they they did this up until about 10 minutes before practice started they beat me on the ice so it's it's ingrained into their they had uh heavy metal music playing in the Hobby and the kids had four stations and they did agility coordination balance and I looked at this and I was with a friend of mine who works at the NHL Now Matt her and her's son was 10 years old at the time and I said hery what would your son look like if he did this heal he'd probably snap his ankle but these kids have been doing it since they were probably six seven in the lobby of the rink a dirty old mat they rolled out of a uh closet they're doing tumbling they got these benches they're doing footwork and if you look at the bottom slide with the young kids you can see the people doing stuff at the other end of into the lobby of the rink so there's four stations they rip through it in 30 35 minutes and it's the kids are smiling or having fun and then they go out and practice it's a GameChanger there was rinks that wouldn't let the the coaches do it in the lobby so they went out in the parking lot in February and B you know five six inches of snow they were going to do something it didn't matter and then and then when we go and test some of our best players this is what they look like these are some of the best players at 14 and 15 Tier one some former NHL players kids in this group the issue we have in our country is they've eliminated a lot of PE and eliminated a lot of recess so our kids are not getting the basis of coordination balance and Agility they they can't do a somersault they've never done it I mean think about that and you think about we're asking these kids to be on a quarter inch blade of Steel on ice so if you can if you can encourage your coaches to do some type of activity before practice after practice depending on when they have it and then even better if you can add a layer of decision- making to the activity so we've progressed from some of the stuff that the this the fins were doing with like a tic-tac-toe grid so now you got two players doing something but they're racing to a grid and they have a colored Puck and they're playing tic tac toe so now they have to make a decision while they're they're performing some type of agility great question we'll kind of open it back up to the group then Roger too we want to be respectful of your time does anybody have any last questions for Roger Roger uh uh I'm also as as well as the mic coach I'm also the goalie person in our association and so I I loved what at least at the upper levels incorporating the goalies and some of the stick handling and the passing that's great um any other advice that you have would be appreciated especially at the younger levels I think one of the issues that we have is a lot of times um we we don't get the best athletes playing goalie and um that's one of the things that I think we we really kind of struggle with um in our association is there any any advice you have for that yeah I would get the quick change gear and I would uh I would get as many kids experiencing the position as possible um and and I would I would also um encourage your goal tenders to do as much of the other stuff that everybody else is do don't let them just go to a skating station it's just so unproductive like so so unproductive in terms of Player Development like let them let them do other stuff um I I always in coaching College I always made our goalies I'll share this with you um do some of the stuff the other goalies were doing a lot and so you can see here like we're playing a little um we're playing a little uh give and go um you know skating passing decision-making stuff but the goalies are in line and the goalies are going to play the game right they're gonna they're going to do it then we're going to go to keep away and the goenda to compete in the in the keep away part of this right so I'll get to that right here you can see the goalies he's in there competing and battling and skating if your goalies your goalies got to be great athletes they got to be great skaters they got to be good Puck hand or they got to be just competitive as heck and oftentimes we neglect those three things with our goalies in practice and you don't have to be a goalie expert to to allow your goalies to do some some stuff yeah I would agree with that um and even you know there's a with the goalies a lot of times are mentally different than the rest of the team and that's that's exacerbated when you put them on their own End by themselves when the rest of the team is doing some of this stuff and absolutely it can put your goalies out on a mental Island um to do that in practice end in games absolutely and and like so we we strongly suggest if you look at our goalie stuff we strongly suggest that the younger ages that if you have two goalies like at 8 you we actually suggest that they they change every five minutes you know just think about a young kid sitting on the bench for half a game or not playing at all like giving up a couple hours on a Saturday and not even get in the game that's insane you want you want to get a shortage of goalies in your Association do that right yeah we about that as a as a parent you're gonna you're kid trying to be a good teammate I'm going to go sit on the bench and watch everybody else play on a Saturday at a minimum split the game but what about if you just rotated every five minutes every every five minutes a whistle the next kid's in like just flip it up and we've had teams on the girls and boys side that have won national championships in Youth Hockey that have done that that they've rotated their goal tenders every five minutes and you want to see like there's always going to be one kid's a little bit better than the other but guess what that's a self-fulfilling prophecy if you don't work with both of them don't get equal opportunity that's that that's a lot of a lot of associations complain to us about not having enough goalies and you go watch how they practice with them and you watch how they handle them in a game you're like no duh I wouldn't want to be a goal in your association either yeah we we've invested in second set so we have four sets now of quick change gear yeah Quick Change stuff's awesome yeah and so we get to incorporate a lot of kids when we go off to our jambes at the U level and then we we've taken it a step further this year at the squirts where we have goalie rotations they do a two week stint and then you know two weeks we decided it was kind of the magic time if it was just an ice session or two they're still feeling awkward and they're not loving it and then but two weeks allows at least for the first half of the Season that allows everybody to play who wants to play and then you see who is serious when we start games in the second half of the Season perfect so that's that was our idea we're that's new this year so we'll see how it goes oh I think that's fantastic and we have we have a whole department Stevie Thompson oversees our goal tending development stuff and he's phenomenal so I would strongly suggest you lean on him for some of that as well yeah Drew and I are gonna do this one of his goalie sessions coming up here so he got the bronze silver and gold yep good last question Dylan way to sneak the goalies in there I appreciate that yeah gota take care of them well Roger we really appreciate it this was awesome um won't be the last time I bug you um but thanks for taking time for RONA area youthy we appreciate it absolutely my pleasure all right have a good night Roger thanks everybody good luck everybody thank you Roger we really appreciate your time my pleasure you guys take care yep have a good one thanks guys