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Official HockeyShare Blog by Kevin Muller Youth Hockey Coaching Official HockeyShare Blog Blog NavigationHome Planning a PracticeJan15Posted by Kevin Filed under Comments & ThoughtsTags hockey coaching hockey practice hockey practice plan youth hockey coaching Youve got your teamyouve got your schedulenow its time to plan your practice Where do you start There are so many things to think about and so many drills to choose from how does a coach know what to do Practice planning can be one of the single biggest factors in having a successful season The way a team practices and the preparation put into each session go a long way to developing the team good or bad! The ageold saying of you play like you practice is (most times) spotonI believe one of the most important things a coach can do is properly plan each practice prior to the session and share the plan with the other coacheshelpers on the ice with himher Think of a practice plan as a onenight goal setting map If you dont know what youre trying to accomplish how will you ever know if you are successful A good tempo doesnt necessarily indicate a good practice A good practice is only achieved when players make progress on whatever skills or systems the coach deems it necessary to work on that evening Think of it this way when players start a game they all know what the goal is! Everyone understands they want to put the puck into the opposing teams net and whichever team does it the most will be declared the winner Scoring the goal is the goal Its easy to tell at the end of a game whether or not you were successful we keep track of these goals on the scoreboard! When you run a practice the target becomes much more subjective but without a target youll never know if youre on trackSo how should you approach planning your practices I believe there are some core concepts one must take into account each time in order to effectively plan practice1) Know your practice & game schedule Before you can plan your practice youve got to know some basic things about your schedule Did you just get off a 5game tournament weekend Do you have a game tomorrow Is this your first practice of the week after a day off These are a few of the questions you need to ask yourself before you even think about planning your practice As coaches weve got to realize what our players are capable of and what their overall energy level should be entering the session If you just played 5 games over the weekend and youre practicing on a Monday you should probably expect your players to be a bit more tired than if they were coming off an offdayWhen my players are tiredbanged up I look to spend more time on fullice flow and systemrelated concepts rather than short intense burst drills I also try to keep the drills pretty simple if you try to get overly complicated with a tired team their chance...