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RECOMMANDATION N° 4
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Recommendation 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
| Raise awareness of the importance of skill development and establish a system to measure and celebrate skills. |
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Definitions for this Discussion Paper
Skill Development: The improvement in a player's ability to play the game on an individual level; his/her skating, passing, shooting, stickhandling and checking skills.
Measure Skills: Method to determine a player's individual skills compared to a predetermined norm.
Celebrate Skills: Positive reward for players improving their individual skills of skating, passing, shooting, stick handling, checking, etc. |
There is nothing more valuable to an aspiring hockey player than a pat on the back and being complimented for a job well done. All too often, players are told what they did wrong instead of what they did right. Positive reinforcement goes a long way towards improving the skill development of a minor hockey player.
In his presentation at the Open Ice Summit, Dave King remarked on the subject of "survival coaches." Those so ensconced in their own world of worrying about coaching next year and being recognized as a winner that they overlook teaching the basic fundamentals and skills. Coaches are sometimes given manuals outlining drills and exercises that can be done, but it is never impressed upon them the responsibility they have. Coaches are given hockey's most valuable and impressionable resources - the players - and are never reminded how important it is for them to get better as the season progresses. The bottom line should never be wins and losses. Those will come and go. What stays with a player is what he learns. If he or she learns to have fun while being taught how to skate and shoot and puckhandle, that makes the experience more enjoyable and makes them more likely to stick with the sport.
Instead of measuring coaches and leagues on wins, losses and championships, they should be graded on how the players developed over the course of the season. There is no system of this kind in place in Canada. Players should be individually graded at the start of a season and monitored as the season progresses to determine if they are being taught adequately. "At the end of the line, (a player's development) falls on the coaches," said Ken Hitchcock a former minor hockey coach and current bench boss of the Stanley Cup champion Dallas Stars. "We're the teachers." Players should also be reinforced positively to help encourage development. Positive reinforcement creates a healthy working environment which increases development, which leads to more positive reinforcement and so on. An analogy: If I am a 20-handicap golfer and I try to teach someone how to golf, I am teaching them how to be a 20-handicap golfer, because that's all I know. But if a scratch golfer provides the same amount of lessons, the student will be much better off. The same holds true with coaches. The best coaches provide the best environment for skill development. A poor and ineffective coach will create bad habits that could take years to unlearn.
This recommendation should be tied in with recommendation number one, the creation of the master/mentor coaching program. No one is more well-suited to determining the skill progression of a minor hockey player than an established and experienced coach. |
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