← Beginner's Guide

A useful session has a point, a warm-up, some hard underwater work, stick skills, and enough game that people want to come back. New teams are tempted to spend the whole hour on positions. Positions matter, and they sit on fitness and individual skill. Work every layer a little every week. The share of time looks like a pyramid: more time on being able to get to the bottom and handle the puck, less on set plays, until the base is actually there.

People play because it is fun. The game is usually the fun part. Leave room for it.

A typical session

1. Warm-up. Easy surface swimming with the snorkel in. A few BOGDATs.
2. Sprints. Short surface efforts so players can move around a full court when they are up.
3. Underwater work. BOGDATs, lengths, or a relay. This is bottom time. Until everyone can swim on the bottom, the group is still learning to snorkel, not playing hockey.
4. Puck skills. One focus: a punch, a flick, a turn with the puck, or a two-on-one. Dry-land or carpet stick work belongs here too when the pool time is short. Breath holds only give you 10–20 seconds per drop, so a lot of stick learning should happen on the deck.
5. Team piece. A drill with a rule (must pass, must support, must stay in a lane), then a short scrimmage that uses the same rule.
6. Play. Keep the sets short. Surface when you need air (Safety).

Name the focus out loud at the start. One focus beats a tour of every skill in the manual.

What to train

Hockey uses three kinds of effort, and a session can touch each without a lecture:

• Very short, maximal efforts — the strike, a sprint to a loose puck, a punch. A few hard reps, full recovery.
• Repeated hard drops — the work rate of a forward or mid. Short rests, quality still high.
• Longer easy swimming — surface fitness so you can get to the next drop. This can live in the warm-up and in laps between sets.

Stop a set when the skill falls apart. Tired reps that teach a bad duck dive are expensive.

Further reading

Practice Drills, Fitness, Coaching Beginners.

WUHA Schools Coaching Manual, sections 1, 5, and 10.

← Beginner's Guide