Cross Ice Hockey Benefits
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As we are only a few weeks away from kids, coaches and parents returning to ice rinks for the upcoming hockey season I thought it was a good time to discuss the benefits of Cross Ice Hockey.
In many of the clinics I have ran over the years I play clips from a video of Don Lucia when USA Hockey was introducing their ADM Model in 2007. He touches on several key points, one being his belief that tykes (5-7 years old in the USA) should be playing cross ice games, not full ice.
That was 10 Years ago, right when I was coaching very same age groups and thought the same, as he referenced it was like adults playing on a football field, there would not be much back checking. My analogy for full ice game play for Novice was Beehive, as the lesser skilled players would literally chase the stronger players all around the ice surface, many of which would not touch the puck at all during an entire game.
Below is a short clip that USA hockey did put together several years later showing what it is like for adults to play on a similar playing surface to a football field with nets that are approximately twice the size as traditional hockey nets.
USA Hockey mandated Cross Ice Hockey for their 5-8 year old age group in 2014, then for the 2016-17 season, BC Hockey mandated cross ice for the same age groups (Initiation 5-6, Novice 7-8). Saskatchewan Hockey implemented for initiation (5-6 yrs old) group only last season, and in March of this year Hockey Canada announced they will be mandating cross ice hockey nationally for the Initiation Age Groups. As far as I am concerned, it should have happened years ago and I applaud all of the governing bodies implementing to adhere to LTAD.
While I was running clinics last fall and interacted with coach coordinators, coaches and parents in those same age groups there were many that were for the implementation of cross ice, but also many against. Literally every clinic when I was going to or leaving benches I would walk past parents that were huddled up expressing concerns that cross ice would not prepare their son or daughter for Atom (9-10 yrs old). I also would hear concerns about it not preparing them for the rep level of Atom, which is supposed to be development age group but give players of higher skill to play with kids of similar skill.
What I found coaching both Atom Rec (House) teams and Atom Rep teams was the same, as soon as kids entered that age group it became competitive even though we should still be adhering to LTAD and learn to play at that age group.
Why ?
Because players do play full ice, they do keep track of scores, wins, losses so teams can win a league or playoff banner regardless if playing rec or rep streams.
That is also when the insanity starts to escalate in the stands.
For all those naysayer’s that I came across last season, I would pull out my smartphone and play the following USA analytics videos for parents to show them all the benefits of cross ice hockey;
According to the analytics, the benefits of small-surface play vs. traditional full size play are as follows:
- 2X the body contact battling for the puck
- 6X more shots per player
- 2X more puck touches per player
- 1.75 shots per minute on goalies vs. 0.45 on full ice
- 2X more pass attempts per player
- 5X more passes received per player
- 2X more changes of direction per player
Advanced players benefited even more
- 2X more puck touches
- 2X more shot attempts
- 2X more pass attempts
These are the reasons why USA Hockey, BC Hockey and now Hockey Canada are implementing cross ice for the youngest players, to give them the opportunity to touch the puck vs. what I referred to as bee hive hockey for the first few years.
For the skilled player it is not much fun and for the lesser skilled players it becomes very frustrating and many will give up on the game well before they should as they never touch the puck.
I also had coaches or hockey executive members complain about the following issues;
- BC Hockey only gave them 2 months notice to implement, it was voted on at the annual AGM in June and all MHA’s in BC were expected to implement in Sept.
My reply, if we continue to delay, we will continue to fall behind other nations like USA and Europe.
- The costs to purchase the boards used to split into two, or for the creative associations 3, sheets of ice to permit cross ice hockey was in the area of 30K and for many smaller associations would require they raise reg fees to absorb the expense.
My reply – it is a one time expense and the cost savings permitting 2-3 teams on one ice surface (with ice costing approx. 200-300.00 per hour depending on where located) should offset within one or two seasons (depending on how many H1-4 teams associations have).
- The logistics of setting up for the younger age groups then taking down for the older age groups to permit full ice play would take up to 30 minutes and would affect the total ice time available for all hockey age groups, but also ringette, figure skating, public skating etc.
My Reply – I have known some AMAZING ice schedulers over the years who can make adjustments on the fly to accommodate and having multiple teams share once ice surface would permit potentially more ice slots for the older age groups.
Cross Ice Hockey for U9 age groups is a long time coming, and if you have followed the world juniors the last 2 decades if we do not go down the same path as other nations that are implementing cross ice play for the younger age groups we will continue to struggle at the international level.
The World Juniors has been a showcase for the worlds top U20 players, many of which have been drafted or draft eligible for the NHL.
In the 2000’s Canada dominated, winning 5 consecutive gold medals.
They then won Silver in 2010 and 2011, Bronze in 2012 and did not medal in 2013 or 2014. In 2015 thanks to an emerging “pretty good player” Connor McDavid and outstanding play by many of his team mates Canada did return to the podium for Gold only to not medal in 2016 and lose to the USA in 2017.
Brent Sutter, coach of the 2014 team that did not medal stated when interviewed after the tournament that he would like to see more skill and creativity and that is what they got beat by on some nights. This starts at the grass roots level when kids are in the early stages of LTAD, and he further comments on the fact that the current Canadian Youth Hockey Model puts too much emphasis on competitive play (games) vs. skill development in practices.
Click here to read the full Globe and Mail article
Although many parents aspired for the kids to play at the rep level where teams are assured to get 2 practices a week, as a result of our current system it still works out to a 1:1 practice to game ratio. I believe in atom and peewee ages groups which are the key development years of skill acquisition that we should revisit this model and rep teams should only play one game per week and replace the second game with a practice to ensure optimal skill development. This would change the practice to game ratio to 3:1. It would not require any additional ice to do so, merely converting one ice slot that is already assigned for those teams to a practice vs. a game slot. By doing so, I believe the skill and creativity level of Canadian born players would increase exponentially to ensure that we remain competitive at the international level.
Hockey Canada 2014 World Junior Team after loss to Russia in the Bronze medal game
USA (3), Finland (2), Russia (1) and Sweden (1) have been the other countries to reach Gold since 2010, all of which have invested heavily in LTAD models.
Although Canada once was Canada’s #1 Youth Sport, it no longer is for a myriad for reasons, Soccer is now the #1 youth team sport by over 100,000 registrants. Jason De Vos, Director of Development and the rest of the Soccer Canada team also are looking at various means to improve skill development in the younger age groups.
Why ? Because Canada National Men’s Soccer (European Football) program is ranked 117th in the world.
In the keynote presentation he did for Ontario Soccer we shared in this weeks newsletter, he referenced the transformation that Iceland did with their National Football Program, in 2000 they were ranked 131st in the world but due to various initiatives they implemented (including focus on LTAD, skill development with the younger players) they not only qualified for Men’s Europ Cup in 2016 they WON against England !! Iceland is now ranked 23rd in world as a result and are 1/10th the size of Canada or 1/100th the size of USA in terms of population.
Another nation that has developed some pretty good NHL players is Sweden. They implemented Cross Ice Hockey years ago, and play until they are 10 (atom age group), and then full ice non-competitive games (no scores kept) until they reach the Bantam Age Group (13-14 years old). They also have a practice to game ratio of 5:1 as it is in practices (when planned well) that players develop.
Every single coach who played his youth hockey in Europe that I have interacted with over the last 10 years, including several who played professionally, state they don’t understand why there is such an emphasis on competitive games vs. skill development.
For me it started in my first year coaching minor hockey in 2004, H1, 5 year old kids and there were no games, just skill development ice slots but we did incorporate small area games in. Only a month into that season several parents asked me and fellow coaches “when are we going to play games”, to this day I still shake my head the question was posed, most of the kids could barely stand on their skates without falling down and parents wanted to see full ice games.
I look forward to seeing the impact cross ice hockey will have in the coming years, and other initiatives as they are rolled out to continue focusing on Hockey as a long term player development model.
Let’s work together to bring the game back to the kids.
