Youth Hockey Development Models

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Youth Hockey Development Models

Postby Cubanpuckstopper » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:20 pm

Although this thread does not specifically start out about goaltending, the new guidelines that are being developed by USA Hockey will impact all players, including goalies. I will make the general statement that the Finnish hockey Association is to Finland, as USA Hockey is to the United States, please correct me if that is not true. ( http://www.finhockey.fi and www.usahockey.com )

The two articles linked below explain the new directions for the association; there are numerous references to Finland and Europe as models for development.

http://www.usahockey.com/ADM/default.as ... edNews=yes

http://www.usahockey.com/uploadedFiles/ ... %20Paper(2)%201.26.09.pdf
(you may have to copy and paste the above link, the () are messing with the url format)

One of the central themes in the new USA Hockey program is development of hockey players between the ages of 9 to 12. Diagram 2, on page five of the second linked article describes this.

One of the reasons this might not work is that the more experienced coaches work with the older players, ages 16 to 19. There are even fewer experienced coaches to work with goalies in the U.S. In fact most of the goalie instruction at this ages comes from well-intentioned parents. I respect them for helping, but many times at age 14 an experienced coach will have to undo some of the coaching that has occurred at the earlier ages.

With all of this said perhaps we could discuss some questions.

Do most believe that goalies develop later than the 9 to 12 year old time frame that USA Hockey is targeting? My personal belief is that in any sport, the more the position being played “reads and reacts”, the later the growth curve occurs.

Does the Finnish model follow the U.S. model and have the most qualified coaches work with the oldest players or do the most experienced coaches work with younger players?

It is a pleasure to be here, and I welcome any and all responses.
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Postby Jukka Ropponen » Tue Mar 10, 2009 7:53 pm

Thnaks for posting the links. I am sure a lot of our members will read your postings and comments and eventualoly you will also get more Finns to reply (don't be shy guys).

I was part of the Finnish ice Hockey associations organization some 20+ years ago when we were buiolding the goalie coaches education program and it took several years to see the results, but I can say that USA Hockey is on the right path. Educating goalie coaches for all age levels is the right way to bring the level of goaltending talent up coming from U.S. youth ranks.

To answer your question things are the same way here, more experienced goalie coaches (coaches in general) do work with the older teams.

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Re: Youth Hockey Development Models

Postby Jukka Ropponen » Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:35 am

Cubanpuckstopper wrote:
Do most believe that goalies develop later than the 9 to 12 year old time frame that USA Hockey is targeting? My personal belief is that in any sport, the more the position being played “reads and reacts”, the later the growth curve occurs.



That age is way too young to start develop goalies for hockey specifically. At that age these young kids should be playing multiple sports, learn good all around sports skills and develop their overall motoristic skills.

If the training at that age is too "one sided" it will harm the development of these young athletes.

I try to always encourage young kidfs to play baseball (pesäpallon in Finland), lacrosse, basketball etc on top of hockey and then later after puberty they can start choosing what sport they want to specialize.

Unfortunately we also have a lot of coaches here in Finland that are going after regional titles etc at young age instead of thinking what is best for their players looking at long term development.

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Postby Petu67 » Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:30 pm

"Shortly" and generally:

I believe and know that all development goes hand in hand with all learning, so younger you are easier you learn. It doesn't matter what sport you are doing. Of course you can learn as an teenager, but there is always some other sports and talent on a background. Like Jukka wrote, every youngster should have versatile sports untill the later teenage. The focusing for one sport has usually been done too early and too seriously. Fun for sport can be loosen and development is not natural after that. Freedom for training should be allowed, so kids could develop their skills also outside from the controlled training. Anyway for younger kids any sport is a play, and it should be remembered with them. Good coaching does not mean serious or hard training, on the contrary good and versatile practises on childrens terms. They must be encouraged to be individuals and guide them individually. We all can not be exactly similar, we all have different gifts and they should be discovered and developed, not buried by wrong coaching methods or by favouring only a few best ones.

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Postby Cubanpuckstopper » Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:33 pm

Petu and Jukka, thanks for your responses.

Our rink has undergone some managerial changes. Over the years the new management team has developed a hockey relationship with Toronto Maple Leafs coach Graeme Townshend who came down and worked with our youth program http://www.skateatthefair.com/centre/Camps.htm

Although he does not work much with goalies, he has great overall insight on the sport, and I respect his hockey opinions.

Every participant fills out a questionairre at the NHL combine, he said at the 2008 combine that 69 of the top 100 ranked prospects were multiple sport athletes. This trend has been the same for the past four years, and that the scouting staff he works with weighs that more heavily now, than in the past. He also thought that the multi-sport athletes peaked later in life, in many cases as late as 22, and single sport athletes peaked at around age 19. (he did not say how that peak was measured).


In opposition to above paragraphs is this article, although it discusses tennis, most likely the principles can be applied to any sport.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/sport ... es%20Tenni

Which implies lots of proper repetitions at a very young age. I have to believe if kids are spending that amount of time perfecting technique, that there is little time for a second sport.

This is a companion article to the one linked above.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/sport ... APHIC.html

Personally, I believe a multi sport athlete is a better athlete, and a better athlete is a better hockey player. And that goalies benefit more from multiple sports that do the out-skaters.
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Postby Blocker » Thu Mar 12, 2009 4:02 pm

To continue the age-conversation, in my opinion as well, the age of 12 is an absolute minimun to start focusing on specific skills in hockey or any other sport. The puberty usually takes place between the ages of 13 and 15 (when discussing about males) and motoric skills can be improved most easily during those years of our lives. That´s why I prefer putting a high value on coaching of hockey players (and other young athletes) that age.
When it comes to the practicing methods of kids younger than that, I have to comp Jukka. The primary object should absolutely be just to create a sporting lifestyle and to provide children a chance to do sports variedly.
Professional training should be started approximately in the age of 15-16, after the puberty, when also most of the kids are ready to make bigger decisions about choosing between two sports, etc.
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Postby Cubanpuckstopper » Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:02 pm

Blocker, I like the way you think.

It seems to be similar to the guidelines in this article
http://www.floridapantherscare.com/colu ... -revealed/

The above was written by Laura Stamm, who is known for power skating, with contributions from Jack Blatherwick. At one time Blatherwick had a active, interesting website, but his webmaster and good friend passed away playing hockey just before Christmas three years ago, and that site ceased.

In my opinion, the following is one of the most important concepts of the article. Far too many players want to advance to quickly. I also like to apply this concept to goalies.

Here’s my approach to teaching skating techniques:

1. Correctly.
2. Correctly-powerfully.
3. Correctly- powerfully-quickly.
4. Correctly-powerfully-quickly with the puck.
5. Same as 4, now under lots of pressure and in game situations.

*It is imperative to learn ‘correctly’ before worrying about powerfully and quickly - no matter how long it takes


I do not see where in the new USA Hockey model, (as presented in the first post of this thread) where player retention is addressed. USA Hockey has a huge dropout rate at ages 15-16. Since this is not overly discussed it is really difficult to tell if the best players are leaving the sport.

It will not do the new model any good to develop kids from 8-12 to have better skills if they leave the game a few years later.
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Postby Cubanpuckstopper » Fri May 08, 2009 7:58 pm

Here is a good conversation from the CBC on year round hockey.

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/ourgame ... key-2.html

I found Walter Gretzky's comments to be of most interest.
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Postby Cubanpuckstopper » Thu May 14, 2009 1:17 pm

The link below is for an online coaches forum from CBC. I'm not entirely sure of the format, but my initial thoughts are it might be an hour wel spent.

Today at 1pm US East Cost time
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/ourgame ... forum.html
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Re: Youth Hockey Development Models

Postby TartanBill » Thu May 14, 2009 2:07 pm

Cubanpuckstopper wrote:
Do most believe that goalies develop later than the 9 to 12 year old time frame that USA Hockey is targeting? My personal belief is that in any sport, the more the position being played “reads and reacts”, the later the growth curve occurs.


The physical tools of a 9-12 year old are vastly different than a more mature goalie. The game they face is also vastly different. I agree with Jukka, the kids should be playing a variety of sports. To the extent that I would consider focusing on a goalie, it would be activities that not only work on overall athleticism, but hand-eye coordination and skating skills.

As you say, read-react will also develop later. I don't have any clear evidence one way or the other if this skill can be trained a younger age with the proper training.

Ultimately, high performance will require countless hours of boring practice. I want the 9-12 year olds to "Love" the game enough that they will put in that effort later when they are more mature.
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Re: Youth Hockey Development Models

Postby Jukka Ropponen » Thu May 14, 2009 7:08 pm

TartanBill wrote:
Cubanpuckstopper wrote:
Do most believe that goalies develop later than the 9 to 12 year old time frame that USA Hockey is targeting? My personal belief is that in any sport, the more the position being played “reads and reacts”, the later the growth curve occurs.


The physical tools of a 9-12 year old are vastly different than a more mature goalie. The game they face is also vastly different. I agree with Jukka, the kids should be playing a variety of sports. To the extent that I would consider focusing on a goalie, it would be activities that not only work on overall athleticism, but hand-eye coordination and skating skills.

As you say, read-react will also develop later. I don't have any clear evidence one way or the other if this skill can be trained a younger age with the proper training.

Ultimately, high performance will require countless hours of boring practice. I want the 9-12 year olds to "Love" the game enough that they will put in that effort later when they are more mature.


I am so glad to have people like you on board, it is just too bad that we keep on losing to those "over competitive" folks that want to win championship titles with young teams and don't see the big picture in the development of these young athletes and boys & girls.

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Postby Cubanpuckstopper » Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:03 am

http://www.greatesthockeylegends.com/20 ... d-usa.html

Some good points are made in this article.

I do agree that European development is being overlooked.

I'm not sure how this money is being spent, there is some discussion that it will get the 24 (or so) high performance teams off the ground, which really isn't pushing the money far enough down the system.[/url]
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Postby Cubanpuckstopper » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:15 pm

To continue our discussion of youth hockey models, the US U-17 roster was just annnounced.

http://usahockey.cachefly.net/Media/071 ... Roster.doc

Minnesota still has a foundation of skills, and Wisconsin has followed suit, hence the strong reprensation

Most notable are, three players from California, including a goalie.

California is rapidly becoming one of the larger producers of USA Hockey players.

Perhaps as this article discusses it is the profesional hockey influence that may be growing the sport
http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/1 ... key_part1/]

but I beleive it has more to do with the focus on skills, as discussed on part 2.
http://www.hockeysfuture.com/articles/1 ... key_part2/

From HF Article wrote:It’s always been about emphasizing skill development,” said head coach Mike Lewis. “When we first started, we thought well, let’s get the kids and give them what we thought would be necessary to get them to a higher level. So we work on skill development first and foremost. We work with the kids on things like skating and stick handling. That was our bread and butter over the years and we kind of stuck to it. So the kids that we have coming into our club would always be given that year after year. I think that has really helped them to move on to the next level. And we’ve pretty much done it with just Southern California kids too.”



Massachusetts on the other hand has only one player on the roster. In recent years, the Massachusetts district has focused on games, starting with games in late August in some cases. They now have one of the worst practice to game ratios.
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Postby pmgaff » Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:03 am

Aside from the already well-made points about young players' development, my first read through of USA Hockey's plans makes me concerned that a "rich will get richer" scneario, where Tier I, AAA teams, who already attract more talented and committed players will get this development money as they transition to "high performance clubs."

By itself this isn't necessarily bad, I guess, but there does not seem to be (to my eyes, anyway) any plan for having that development model filter down to the smaller programs. Also, as Cuban pointed out, the coaches who arguably need the most training (i.e. those coaching the little kids) are getting the least training.

I need to read through that thing again and really sort out how I feel about it. All I know is that my 11-yr-old has had two really great summers playing baseball, golf and fishing with his dad and hasn't missed summer hockey one bit, even though a few of his buddies are skating.
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Postby Cubanpuckstopper » Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:47 am

Here is the follow p to the Level V clinic from the USAH website.

http://www.usahockey.com//Template_Usah ... 5&ID=19554

Two points come to mind :

From the list of featured speakers, 1 of 17 were specific to goaltending.

In recent years there has been a push to focus on skills, I find it difficult to believe that coaches are developing skills by listening to speakers in a conference room setting. Dollar for dollar, techniques that develop skills are better learned watching/participating in on ice activites with people like Jukka, Yona, McKichan, etc.
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