A Czech Hockey Skills Session

My Czech coaching friend, Oldrich Jindra, recently published another great video showing his kind of hockey skills session. As members might notice, I've shown you many of the same drills within this site, but I still think it's helpful for you to see them in a different context.

-- Dennis Chighisola

A Czech Hockey Skills Session

As Oly said, his "goals of this session were fun – scoring – scoring under pressure – balance in scoring." And, if anything might have been lost in translation, I'm sure everything will be pretty obvious once you see his Czech kind of hockey skills session...

As I just watched that video again (for the third or fourth time), it struck me that almost all of those drills would be suitable for use with just about all levels of youth hockey. I've used many of them with Mites, and I've certainly used them with Bantams. Oly only shows us one work area at a time, but my guess is that he's smart enough to have more going on in other areas of the ice. I'm sure that the last thing he wants are a lot of kids standing in long lines as they await their turn.

Kids do need rest between bouts of activity, but the prescribed work:rest ratio is usually in the order of 1:2. In other words, players ought to rest for about twice as long as they work, this to accustom their systems to the typical one unit of players working in the game action while two units rest on the bench. (For some great ideas on older players' off-ice conditioning, see this 4-part series.)

Another thing I noticed... I think most members know that I'm not into "fun" just for the sake of fun -- so that the inmates are running the asylum (see "Defining Fun -- in Hockey, in Sport"). Oldrich does things more like I like to see them done, though. In other words, I think most of that Czech hockey skills session was fun for his kids, and those drills would be fun for our kids. A session like that isn't just a waste of time, though. No, those kids are surely growing in each one of Oly's drills. Then, I loved the shooting drills Oldrich shows us, mainly because they agree with my theory of "Moving From A Vacuum To The Hockey Game". I mean, I give some guys on YouTube.com a hard time about rehashing and rehashing the same old shooting mechanics, without ever suggesting ways players can bring their shots to real game conditions. Lastly, I noticed the closing graphic by Oldrich, about his kids playing the last few minutes of that practice in 2 on 2 small games. I'll go along with that, because it's a far cry from what USA Hockey suggests (in a video I recently critique: "Are People Really THIS Dumb?"). The ironic thing is, USA Hockey uses for ammo the supposed fact that everyone in European hockey relies on cross-ice and small area games for teaching the game. Ha.

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If you'd like to see more from Oldrich Jindra, or more in the way of Czech hockey skills sessions, just Click Here.