Coaching ice hockey, from the first skates to adults

A first-skates station: players stand, balance and glide on the spot and over short distances, in the order the federations teach it.

An edge-control pattern: players skate figure eights and slaloms on the inside and outside edges, forward and backward.

A starting and stopping pattern: players learn the starts and the stops hockey uses, in the order Hockey Canada lists them for U7 to U11.

A skating circuit on the face-off circles and the lanes between them: forward striding, backward skating, turns and crossovers in one run.

A short block on acceleration and quickness. Hockey Canada moves the emphasis from agility to quickness and acceleration from age 13, and lists acceleration, quick feet and linear crossovers among the skating skills of the Develop stage.

A keep-away in a small space: one player protects the puck with the body and the stick while a partner tries to win it with stick checks only.

A carry-and-finish drill on the individual offensive tactics Hockey Canada lists from U11: body fakes, stick fakes, dekes, moves in combination and net drives.

Pairs pass and receive a puck, first standing still and then on the move: forehand and backhand passes, the bank pass off the boards and pass and follow.

A shooting station on the forehand wrist shot and the backhand sweep shot, first from a stand and then in motion, with the flip shot added once the basics hold.

A shooting drill organised on Hockey Canada's four areas where goals are scored: in tight, the wide alley by the dot, the slot and the point.

A finishing drill around the net: shooters score on rebounds, tips and deflections and in front of a screening teammate, against a goaltender.

The SIHF small-ice game: three skaters against three, plus a goaltender each, across the width of a quarter of the rink for U9 and a third for U12, with a horn every 60 seconds and whole blocks changing on the fly.

The FFHG's third-ice game: four skaters and a goaltender per team, played across the width of the two end zones on a third of the rink, changing blocks at a 60-second buzzer.

The half-ice game of Hockey Canada's U9 division and Hockey Québec's M9: four skaters and a goaltender per team, two games at once with one in each half of the rink, timed changes and no offside or icing.

A rotation that keeps every child active when two games share the ice: each line plays a game shift, goes to the skills zone, then rests.

A corner game from the USA Hockey handbook for 12-and-under: 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 in a corner with shifts of 30 to 40 seconds, « just like in a real game ».

A small-area game from the USA Hockey handbook for 14-, 16- and 18-and-under: a player is added every 10 seconds until the game reaches 4 on 4.

A small game in which the coach names the four player roles that the ÖEHV, the SIHF's Impact U13 sheet and Hockey Québec's M9 guide use in place of systems: the puck carrier, the supporting teammate, the defender against the puck carrier and the defensive support.

Small-area transition games with a stationary or support player, the family the USA Hockey handbook lists for 10-, 12- and 14-to-18-and-under: 3-on-2 Transition, Safehouse, Coach's Quarterback, Rover Transition, 4 Corner Support, Red Baron, 2-on-1 Transition.

Breakout games from the USA Hockey handbook for 14-, 16- and 18-and-under: a mid-ice 4-on-3 breakout, a 3-on-2 breakout forecheck that can only turn to offence after a turnover and one successful pass in the team's own end, and the cross-ice 3-on-2 « Town Carnival ».

Power-play and penalty-kill games from the USA Hockey handbook for 14-, 16- and 18-and-under: 4-on-2 and 4-on-3 special teams on a one-minute change, 5-on-3 with a player in the middle of four cones in a diamond, and a regroup game in which stationary players on the face-off dots turn a 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 into a 4-on-3 or 5-on-4.

A goaltending trial for the youngest: every child takes a turn in the net, in practice and in games, so that no child is fixed as the goaltender.

A goaltender technique station from Hockey Canada's Level 1 curriculum: the stance and the movements between the posts (T-push, shuffle, C-cut and pivot).

A positioning and save-selection drill on Hockey Canada's Level 1 skills: angles, squaring to the puck, depth, and the basic saves with the stick, the glove, the blocker and the body, then breakaways.

A rebound drill: the goaltender controls rebounds and freezes the puck, the Level 1 skills of rebound control and freezing pucks.

A puck-handling drill for goaltenders from Hockey Canada's Level 2 curriculum: setting pucks, outlet passes and rims, with stickhandling from Level 1.

Step 1 of Hockey Canada's checking progression, positioning and angling, with no contact: a defender reads the speed and the route of the puck carrier, shadows him or her like a mirror and angles the carrier toward one side.

A tag game that puts angling and positioning in a game scenario.

The harder drills of Hockey Canada's step 1: open-ice angling without help from the boards, the angling gate drill that limits the carrier to one option, and the stampede that closes the gap quickly and angles the carrier to the outside.

Game situations with controlled contact from Hockey Québec's contact programme (Révision 2026): carrying the puck against a forechecker, the defenceman's pinch against the winger, positioning in the corner on a dump-in, and the competitive exercise « pursuit and physical contact », where « after the contact, it is only a race ».