Hockey Canada Decides That Less is More Re: Ice Surface & Young Players

[shelfit]

When I grew up in northern Minnesota in the 60's and 70's, we would run our sticks through the blades of our skates and head down to the elementary school outdoor rink every day after school, like a bunch of hobos. We would play several hours a day, with constantly-changing teams and no goalies. All of that goofing around taught us to stickhandle, spin, dig the puck out of the corners, and a thousand other skills that would become useful later on when we played on organized teams and learned to play within a system.

Years later, I drove my daughter to her youth hockey practices at the one of the arenas near our suburban Minneapolis home. The kids would practice for an hour, learning skating, passing, and shooting skills, but never having time in the organized practice for the little extra skills I learned playing pond hockey. The girls, for the most part, never skated outside of their organized practice schedule.

This is a long-winded way of saying that small-area skating practices are a critical part of a player's overall development. As the kids got older and could no longer play cross-ice, I always encouraged them to participate in 3-on-3 leagues, particularly on some of the mini rinks such as the Pond in Rosemount or Total Hockey in Lakeville. Those leagues would force the kids to handle the puck and develop their individual puck skills.

I had a similar experience when I was growing up, and you are spot on with your post. Plus I find girls don't like/want to spend hours in the driveway shooting at an empty net like we used to do way back then.

[ne7minder]

Re: Hockey Canada Decides That Less is More Re: Ice Surface & Young Players

When I grew up in northern Minnesota in the 60's and 70's, we would run our sticks through the blades of our skates and head down to the elementary school outdoor rink every day after school, like a bunch of hobos. We would play several hours a day, with constantly-changing teams and no goalies. All of that goofing around taught us to stickhandle, spin, dig the puck out of the corners, and a thousand other skills that would become useful later on when we played on organized teams and learned to play within a system.

Years later, I drove my daughter to her youth hockey practices at the one of the arenas near our suburban Minneapolis home. The kids would practice for an hour, learning skating, passing, and shooting skills, but never having time in the organized practice for the little extra skills I learned playing pond hockey. The girls, for the most part, never skated outside of their organized practice schedule.

This is a long-winded way of saying that small-area skating practices are a critical part of a player's overall development. As the kids got older and could no longer play cross-ice, I always encouraged them to participate in 3-on-3 leagues, particularly on some of the mini rinks such as the Pond in Rosemount or Total Hockey in Lakeville. Those leagues would force the kids to handle the puck and develop their individual puck skills.

Exactly. I grew up on the East side of St.Paul in the 50s & 60s had had the exact same experience. I mentioned over in t he WW thread I tried encouraging my kids to play pond & rink in the winter because of the skills it teaches.

[MaizeRage]

Re: Hockey Canada Decides That Less is More Re: Ice Surface & Young Players

There were three non-consecutive weeks of weather cold enough for outdoor skating this year in the Twin Cities and next winter is supposed to be milder. Good luck with that.