ADM and your association

[IHEA]

From what I see, ADM has been put in place as a guideline to help improve training. Lots of ideas and concepts aimed to foster new thinking. 8 year olds working on positioning and shooting during practice? That's the kind of brain dead thinking that ADM is trying to combat. How about high repetition, technique-driven, edgework, skating, passing and puckhandling? They'll all enjoy what ever game you put them in much more when they have the skills to play and really have fun.

[nobama]

Get off of your rocker you must work for usa hockey nothing but a marketing campaign led by Les Steckel as a guide to hockey usa leadership.

[SCBlueLiner]

4 on 4 half ice no goalies at mites and 8u have so drastically reduced development at those levels that if I had another kid coming up I wouldn't even bother. No skating, no passing, no learning positions. An 8 kid cluster f***.

HEAR, HEAR!

Ringettes and soccer balls on the ice are an insult, event to 8u kids. My daughter switched over to the boys team this fall because the speed and intensity was better than the girls team, but when those ringettes and blue pucks came out again, my husband and I went *facepalm*

That's why she's also in a Triple A team in the spring and a winter development league and they are both light years ahead of the association. Thank goodness for that or she'd wither away like a rubber soccer ball getting wacked around by bored 7 & 8 year olds...

Sorry but you are wrong. I have PeeWees that still love to play ringette and we let them play it. It doesn't really resemble Mites ringette as it is full contact and extremely intense. The work they get on tight turns, inside edges, body contact and positioning, and playing with your stick down/head up is remarkable. The game helps make them much stronger skaters and tougher in the corners and in front of the net.

As said earlier, good coaches take pieces of what they like and incorporate it into their practice. There is some good stuff from USAH but there's also stuff you can leave behind. The Mite practice plans are good for novice coaches coaching MiniMites where the goal is to keep practices organized and keep the kids moving and having fun. When you get to Mites I take the basic plan and modify it a bit, but there is nothing wrong with ringette or playing soccer on skates once in a while. It's fun for the kids and it actually does trick them into learning balance and edge work.

I think part of the problem is that these ADM U8 practices are designed for kids under 8. In Minnesota there are 9 yr olds in Mites who would be USAH Squirts and are probably not challenged by these practice plans. It may only be 6 months difference but it does make a huge difference at that age.

[hockeyfan21]

4 on 4 half ice no goalies at mites and 8u have so drastically reduced development at those levels that if I had another kid coming up I wouldn't even bother. No skating, no passing, no learning positions. An 8 kid cluster f***.

HEAR, HEAR!

Ringettes and soccer balls on the ice are an insult, event to 8u kids. My daughter switched over to the boys team this fall because the speed and intensity was better than the girls team, but when those ringettes and blue pucks came out again, my husband and I went *facepalm*

That's why she's also in a Triple A team in the spring and a winter development league and they are both light years ahead of the association. Thank goodness for that or she'd wither away like a rubber soccer ball getting wacked around by bored 7 & 8 year olds...

Interesting take on the insult. We use ringettest at the varsity level from time to time and the guys and girls don't "feel insulted". The first day they were out at a squirt practice that had a ringette game as a station they asked, and I quote "why didn't we do stuff like this?"

Now, I don't work for USA hockey. I don't think ADM is a panacea. But I do think that 6 year olds are 6 year olds and to treat a practice for 6 year olds like they are 16 year olds is ridiculous as well. Take the underlying ideas that work well and use them. Throw out the stuff that doesn't seem to be getting it done. I coach everything from U6 to Varsity and we incorporate ideas from ADM at all levels. Easy example is scoring "station" work at the varsity level to isolate the last 3 seconds of a scoring chance and get a ton of reps I that situation.

I also know this. Give me a kid who can skate, stickhandle, shoot and knows how to compete and I can teach them a system in three weeks. Give me a kid who doesn't have fundamental skills at a high level and Junior Gold/U19 can try to teach them a system because they won't be able to execute any of it.

[IHEA]

Agree HF,
It's a guideline to help throw out bad coaching that focuses on game play for young players and get coaches to think outside the box. There are some coaches have always been doing things to produce skills but most are too wrapped up in teaching game concepts (16 year old practices for 6 year olds).

"Take the underlying ideas that work well and use them. Throw out the stuff that doesn't seem to be getting it done." Exactly - its a guideline.

[JSR]

4 on 4 half ice no goalies at mites and 8u have so drastically reduced development at those levels that if I had another kid coming up I wouldn't even bother. No skating, no passing, no learning positions. An 8 kid cluster f***.

HEAR, HEAR!

Ringettes and soccer balls on the ice are an insult, event to 8u kids. My daughter switched over to the boys team this fall because the speed and intensity was better than the girls team, but when those ringettes and blue pucks came out again, my husband and I went *facepalm*

That's why she's also in a Triple A team in the spring and a winter development league and they are both light years ahead of the association. Thank goodness for that or she'd wither away like a rubber soccer ball getting wacked around by bored 7 & 8 year olds...

Interesting take on the insult. We use ringettest at the varsity level from time to time and the guys and girls don't "feel insulted". The first day they were out at a squirt practice that had a ringette game as a station they asked, and I quote "why didn't we do stuff like this?"

Now, I don't work for USA hockey. I don't think ADM is a panacea. But I do think that 6 year olds are 6 year olds and to treat a practice for 6 year olds like they are 16 year olds is ridiculous as well. Take the underlying ideas that work well and use them. Throw out the stuff that doesn't seem to be getting it done. I coach everything from U6 to Varsity and we incorporate ideas from ADM at all levels. Easy example is scoring "station" work at the varsity level to isolate the last 3 seconds of a scoring chance and get a ton of reps I that situation.

I also know this. Give me a kid who can skate, stickhandle, shoot and knows how to compete and I can teach them a system in three weeks. Give me a kid who doesn't have fundamental skills at a high level and Junior Gold/U19 can try to teach them a system because they won't be able to execute any of it.

Couldn't agree with you more.... I have a Bantam son and a first year squirt son. The older boy actually had coaches who were embracing small area games and the ADM even when he was a mite etc... He is highly skilled and very competitive to his approach, I will say they could have stood to take a TINY TINY bit of time to work a little bit on certain concepts and some other things help understand the game as he actually does struggle with that part a little as an older player but because he has the skill I think he'll be alright with time. My younger boy actually has coaches who IMHO strugggle witht he ADM concept a bit and focus a bit too much time on positioning and conceptual things and from my view point the kids on his team are not getting nearly the skill development my older son got.... so having had two sons and seeing two different approaches there seems to be a "balance" that needs to be struck and it takes a pretty darn good coach to recognize it and implement it, where we are from there are two few good coaches though, so we make due the best we can......

[cheddar]

Our association has made no attempt to move away from the pyramid structure of mites -- we still have the 4 C teams, 2 B teams, one A team instead of the 1/3 low, 1/3 middle, and 1/3 high recommended by ADM. If all the teams are equal in size, the pyramid basically requires a 25% attrition rate each year to keep the kids moving through (or at least moving from C to B). And since the Cs do very little scrimmaging, there is a big difference in our program between being a C mite vs B or A.

[SCBlueLiner]

Reviving this thread for all you coaches out there looking to add a piece to your practice plan, especially Mite ( U8 ) coaches.

The beef I have had with cross ice games is I have noticed it doesn't, IMO, fully develop skating skills. Players can take 3 or 4 strides and be across the ice and many times players are never more than a couple strides out of the play. Frankly, I see a lot of floating around out there by the Mites playing cross ice.

This floating around has carried itself over into Squirts. Our second year squirts were the first group that we had go full ADM/cross-ice only. After two classes going through this model I see our second year and first year Squirts still doing too much floating around. Their skating skills are underdeveloped and, as a result, it's been a rough season for those teams.

I had hoped the half ice, SAG aspect of U8 would translate into more skilled hockey players as squirts. The reality is these players aren't any more skilled. In fact they are less skilled, IMO, because the whack-a-puck, floating around, no skating game has been carried over from Mites to Squirts.

Our Mite coach this season has done a good job of blending old with new. He is running ADM style station based practices, and incorporating segments of full ice skating drills. He is also playing cross ice & SAG's predominantly but every few weeks he holds a full ice scrimmage.

Here is the key to his full ice scrimmages: add more players. I know, duh, of course SCBlue. Honestly, I've been coaching for many years and I think I've seen about every drill there is or at least some variations. It's so elementary that I guess I never thought about it before. More players on the ice compresses the ice surface and there is less time and space to operate in. It forces quick decisions and puck movement. All of which are things the cross ice game forces. The difference is the kids are forced to skate full ice which helps to develop their power skating skills.

I watched this game unfold in front of me and was impressed. The kids were having fun, they were skating hard, and they were forced to move the puck around. No one player was able to dominate play and go end to end. Coach simply added an extra D to each team and played 6 on 6 with goalies. I suppose this format could be adjusted for different variations of games but the premise kept the same, take away time and space while getting a hard, full ice, skate out of the kids.

I feel good with what I see out of the Mites right now and can't wait to see them in action as first year Squirts next season.

HockeyFan21, I'd like to hear some of your ideas for your "scoring station" drills. We've been working on that with our PeeWees as we've had trouble finishing around the net and I'm always looking for new drills to help with that aspect of the game.

[hockeyfan21]

I'll try and draw some stuff up and post it here.

[mackjogger]

I'll try and draw some stuff up and post it here.

looking forward to that post as well>>thx in advance