My Experience Working With New Players
Every Season at the National Team Development Program we get between 20 and 25 new players. There are several things they all have in common. Also, there are certain trends within youth hockey that can be seen. My experience tells me there are some key points that need to be addressed. Doing so will allow a faster and smoother transition to a new team with a new way of thinking about training, eating, and competing.
The first rule when dealing with new players for me is simply to be personable. Be approachable and give very clear instructions. Learn everybody's name ASAP. If you forget a name ask. If somebody does not do what you ask correct them immediately. When correcting the players call them by their name. Doing this will command respect.
Only allow the new players to do things exactly as you would like. Some creativity is fine for players that are more experienced. However, creativity only works after some discipline is established. Be picky and coach the heck out of your new players and they will learn very fast. After all, this is why they are coming to you. If players want to achieve and win they need to become accustomed to getting constructive criticism. For the most part they have not gotten this in youth hockey. They will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
I often have new players tell me they have trained before. They will say they already know how to squat or clean because they had a trainer before. I Don't listen to any of this. I assume they are not good lifters and 99% of the time I am right. There certainly are a lot of trainers out there. However, there are very few good coaches.
OK, so here is a good spot for one of my bad jokes. When a player tells me he had a trainer back home I tell him that must have been cool. Working with a trainer means he must have lived at the zoo...what an experience! Cleaning up after the elephants must be rough, however.
Also, I believe motivating new players is important. I am not talking about yelling and getting all religious here...this is for the trainers, not coaches. The best way to motivate players is to provide them information as to why we train the way we do. To steal a line from Mark Verstegen, "motivation through education".
Now do not give them a lecture here because they don't want to hear some long drawn out explanation. Be brief and to the point. I started our new guys off with a 30 minute presentation about training to become a better athlete. A short explanation about the down falls of things like bodybuilding and crossfit and the benefits of more functional training. Lots of pictures and video showing the similarity of skating and sprinting mechanics for example. I also show some past players doing things like lateral squats and 1 leg squats. I show how these things correlate to skating speed more than leg press. I also hit on interval training vs. spinning on the bike and so on.
Just try to keep things simple. Train smart. Train hard. Coach the players and be strict. Learn names and things will be off to a great start.
