October 8, 2014 • 10:49 am 2
I got this drill from a friend in Colorado who watched the Avalanche run it during practice. I used it last night at practice and I liked the flow and tempo of the drill. Be sure to have the forwards stay wide so the defenseman has time to perform an escape move before the second pass. Also, make sure the D skates hard to jump into the rush.
Click to Download the Drill
.
September 23, 2014 • 10:24 am 0
Robert Morris University Head Coach Derek Schooley gives us this drill today. The drill is designed to work on the breakout pass from the D to Forward down low, followed by the all important second pass to get your team out of the zone. For this drill, the second pass is a chip off the wall to F2 coming through the neutral zone with speed. This is a simple drill in design, but a skill that many players have trouble executing. The ability to chip a puck off the wall, behind a pinching D, into an area of the ice that allows a forward to pick the puck up in stride with speed, is a very important offensive skill to develop in your players.
On the initial pass from the D, the puck can be wrapped to the Forward on the wall, or a direct pass. It’s good to practice both so the F can become comfortable with catching the pass and transitioning up ice.
.
.
Click to Download the Drill
August 8, 2014 • 1:45 pm 0
I received this drill from Coach Eaves last year, but thought it would be good to highlight again as we begin to prepare for the upcoming season. I use this drill a lot because it works a number of areas in a quick moving drill. Players need to concentrate on good passing and receiving skills, timing, speed through the neutral zone and attacking the net. There are a few options for this drill. You can have the D be the players in the corner so they can work on the outlet pass, or you can have all the players work both parts of the drill to gain confidence in the outlet pass. You can also have the player from the corner turn to the outside to receive the pass and attack the zone wide. Also, be sure your goaltender is concentrating on directing his saves away from the front of the net.
Once again, I’d like to thank the guys over at www.HockeyShare.com for their animation software.
.
Filed under: coaching, Drills, Passing, Practice, Transition, Warm-Up
July 22, 2014 • 4:53 pm 0
Here’s a drill from D1 head coach Mike Eaves of the Wisconsin Badgers.
Nice drill to work on zone entry and getting to the net hard. It incorporates timing passes and full ice skating.
I also want to thank Kevin and the guys at www.HockeyShare.com for the animation software, so I could create the video of the drill. Very cool stuff. I’m not an expert, but it was pretty easy to use the first time I tried.
Click to Download the Drills
.
February 25, 2014 • 11:50 am 0
Here are some drills from head coach Rico Blasi that he runs with his D1 Miami of Ohio team. Obviously at this level these drills are done at a very high tempo. Some of the drills we have on the site already in a similar style, but I thought it would be good to group all these drills together anyway. The drills cover  warm-up, passing, read and react, coverage and player battle areas of the game.
I use the Double Pass Wide in almost every full ice practice because it gets the players to make passes through some traffic and keeps them skating. I’ll add a player to the front of the net to track rebounds so the goalies don’t get lazy when making saves. I also use the Two Shot Drive and 4 Whistles drills many times during the season. I believe that these nine drills alone can make up a very good practice that runs at high tempo.
One Touch Passing
Double One Touch Passing
Double Pass Wide
Two Shot Drive with Stretch Pass
Miami 1on1 Continuous
5×2 To 3×3
4 Whistles
Half Ice Breakout
Player Battles
Filed under: Breakout, coaching, Drills, Passing, Practice, Shooting, Transition, Warm-Up
January 15, 2014 • 4:10 pm 0
Robert Morris University head ice hockey coach Derek Schooley sent over a defensive zone coverage drill that works on 1×1, 2×2 and 5×5 skills. This drill is excellent for use on half ice practices as well as full ice practice slots. Every coach needs to work on his teams defensive zone coverage throughout the year and this drill gives us a way to accomplish that goal while working on other defensive skills and keeping the tempo high.
Click to Download the Drill
Filed under: coaching, Defense, Defense, Drills, Practice, Systems, defensive skills, defensive zone coverage, Derek Schooley, Robert Morris University
January 2, 2014 • 1:18 am 0
The other day I posted a few drills the select team used in the warm-up phase of their practice. Here are a few of the drills they used during the skill assessment portion of the practice over the three days. As I said in the earlier post, the coaches also ran a number of 3×3 small area games and standard 2×1 or 3×2 type of drills that I will not include because they are similar to drills already included on the site. I did get the chance to run a few of these at my practice on Monday night and they work really well.
ACHA-Continuous 1v1 With Support Or Backcheck
ACHA-Transition Strongside Weakside
Click to Download the Drills
Filed under: coaching, Defensemen, Drills, Forwards, Goaltender, Practice
December 11, 2013 • 3:18 pm 0
Last week Coach Schooley gave us the Raider Passing drill and today he offers us Canadians Reverse 1 on 1. Last night at practice I ran this drill along with a few others that are designed to work on 1 on 1 skills. This drill works on communication between the defensemen as well as defending the 1 on 1 rush. It works best with six defensemen but can work just as well with four or five also. Make sure D2 is talking to D1 and calling for the reverse. Don’t allow the D to just make the pass without the communication aspect of the drill. The D need to get used to talking to each other in practice so they can do it properly in a game. With the forwards make sure you make them use different attack options during the rush. I don’t allow my players to try the move where they put the puck between the defenders legs and try to get around them during this drill. I want the forwards to work on a power move down the wall if the D has a tight gap, or if the D has a loose gap use him as a screen and fire a shot through his legs at the goaltender. I think it’s important for a forward to have a few moves they can use so forcing them to practice specific moves during this drill will help to make them a more well rounded player. We all know that come game time they are very likely to just try and put the puck between the legs of the defender but if they practice a few other moves maybe they will attempt it during a game.
I hope you find this drill useful, I know it worked well for my team.
Here are two other drills that work on 1 on 1 situations.
Click to Download the Drill
Filed under: coaching, Defensemen, Drills, Forwards, Practice, Shooting
December 9, 2013 • 5:00 pm 1
I get a lot of requests for half ice drills because so many teams are sharing ice to save money. My team practices once each week on shared ice so I thought I would post one of my practice plans for a half ice practice so you can see the type of drills I run with my team. Keep in mind I coach a Tier I Midget 16 team so my needs may be different from yours. I am a huge fan of small area games and I allocate around fifteen minutes of every practice to running different small area games. I start all my practice sessions with five minutes of  informal skating and stick handling then I go into a drill to warm-up the goaltenders. Take a look at the plan, maybe it will give you a few ideas to help with your half ice sessions.
Update: I will add additional half ice practice plans to the Half-Ice Drill section of the site as the season goes along.
December 4, 2013 • 4:15 pm 0
Yesterday I received this simple but very effective passing drill from Derek Schooley ( @DerekSchooley Twitter handle ) head coach at Robert Morris University. Coach Schooley was the very first D I coach to offer to help with this site when I first started it three years ago so it was really great to get some unsolicited drills from him again yesterday. I took it to practice last night and used it with my team and was very pleased with how it flows. You don’t need goaltenders for this drill so my guys were working with the goalie coach while the team executed the drill. If you don’t have a goalie coach to occupy your goaltenders just have them do some crease movement drills or run it the last few minutes of practice and let the goalies go off the ice early. Make sure the players execute the drill with a high tempo and be sure to make them keep their sticks on the ice so the passes can be quick one-touch type of passes.
Click to Download the Drill
Coach Nielsen's Ice Hockey Drills 