A Sample Day in the Life of a Hockey Coach

Well, not just any hockey coach... Ya, my work is a little different than most other ice hockey coaches. As a matter of fact, I don't even limit myself to ice hockey, because I'm BIG into the use of in-lines as a means of cross-training, and I even occasionally work with guys (and sometimes gals) who are strictly roller hockey players. (Jerry Z is just such a roller player, and he's featured often over at CoachChic.com, as I help him move from relative beginner status. As I say often to my ice hockey members, though, they could learn a lot from the way I analyze and troubleshoot Jerry's development.) Now, time management gurus are telling me I start my day wrongly, wading through email right off the bat. I started that practice a lot of years ago, actually beginning and ending my day by checking for important messages. Back then, however, I'd only have a handful of mail at a time. But, want to know what my mailbox reads right this minute? Gulp... 985. So, while I might nowadays take a little time to answer you on-line, perhaps you'll understand. I keep a diary -- faithfully, and I transfer the things I need to do each day to a little piece of paper I've dubbed my "LTS" (don't ask) slip. Anyone who knows me knows if I enter something into my diary or onto that LTS, it is ultimately going to get done. And, anyone who knows me also knows I absolutely hate paperwork. Oh, I love teaching/coaching; it's just the administrative side of it that stinks (at least to me).

*

North Shore (MA) skills coach, Joyce Morin Strong, offered an interesting question this morning: "If you could tell a young hockey player one thing about how to be successful in hockey, what would it be?" I found the Facebook exchange (among about 24 replies) very interesting, and I hope you will, too.

*

CoachChic.com members should love the new posts that are scheduled to appear this weekend... - I tried to accommodate a member a week or so back by giving him a pretty good "head-manning" drill. I wasn't totally satisfied with my answer. It so happens, though, that I invented a beauty for my junior high school kids the other day, and I'll try to get that up in the Drills section by tomorrow night. - Saturday morning is going to bring an awesome article by NDA Head Hockey Coach (and our NEHI goalie coach), Todd Jacobson. It's called "Reflections of a High School Hockey Coach". My guess is that coaches, parents and high school aged players are going to get a lot from that. Going back about a decade, I've taught my players a move made famous by the great Bobby Orr. So, I found a video of Orr demonstrating what I've dubbed the "THE Bobby Orr Move". I've gathered some footage of my young teenage players doing to it (pretty nicely), and I've broken the move into 4 fairly easy-to-do steps. By all means, defensemen should know how to do this, but it's also a great move for forwards to use on the attack.

*

Of course, I spent a good part of today building this blog (under the hood, behind the scenes and all). In between, however, I had the time to meet a new Twitter friend, Sarah C. As it turns out, Sarah runs her own -- mostly Boston Bruins related -- blog (Tea Party Throwdown). She's also just learning to play hockey, and we're discussing ways I might help her with that, perhaps as I'm now doing with Jerry Z.

*

Well, it's almost midnight here in the east. I'm hardly done, though... I'm building a very interesting kind of "store" for the CoachChic.com site, and that's really, really a tough project. So, I'll likely stay with that until my head bangs-off my PC keyboard, sometime in the wee hours, I suspect. :) Night, hockey fans.