Herb Brooks Foundation & Minnesota Hockey Team Up to Train Top Youths
Herb Brooks said it best: “Great moments are born from great opportunities.” Larry Hendrickson and Skip Peltier of the Herb Brooks Foundation were living those exact words the day they sat with Barry Ford, Minnesota Hockey Executive Vice President of Operations, and Mike MacMillan, High Performance Program Director. You see it was the mission of Coach Brooks to train and train again and train again—and through that these opportunities will emerge.
Breaking (Up) the Ice
Playing hockey on a cross-ice or half-size “rink” seems to make sense for the 8 and under crowd. All other youth sports—football, basketball, baseball, soccer—reduce the size of the playing area. But since this spring, when USA Hockey announced it as the official new norm for all 8 and under players, you can’t go to a rink without overhearing plenty of chatter, questions and complaints on this topic. We asked a USA Hockey representative for help with parents’ biggest concerns.
Glossary: The Plus/Minus
In school, did you want to see a B+ or B– on your report card? You probably wanted a B+ and so did your parents—because everyone knows getting a “plus” is better than getting a “minus.” The same goes for hockey. Much like academic grades, the plus/minus system in hockey is a basic way to rate each individual player’s performance. When an even-strength or shorthanded goal is scored, every player on the ice for the scoring team is rewarded a “plus.” Every player on the ice for the team scored against is given a “minus.” A player’s overall total is calculated by subtracting the minuses from the pluses. (Note that power play goals — during which one team is shorthanded — do not count toward either team’s plus/minus.)
How to Prevent Bacterial Meningitis & Tetanus
Hockey players 11 and older — particularly adults — should consider the MCV4 vaccination to prevent bacterial meningitis. This deadly disease affected adult players in Fort Collins, Colorado, this year, possibly from sharing water bottles or shaking hands after removing their mouthguards. According to KidsHealth.org “Children who have not had the vaccine and are over 11 years old should also be immunized, particularly if they’re going to college, boarding school, camp, or other settings where they are going to be living in close quarters with others.”
Making Plays vs. Playing It Safe
Safe hockey—a method of playing the game focused on giving youth teams better chances at winning—sounds like a good thing, right? Unfortunately, what safe hockey amounts to is simply playing it safe. In this “game of territory,” coaches discourage players from making hockey plays for fear of losing the puck and potentially getting scored against. Instead, players are encouraged to dump the puck in the offensive zone as opposed to trying to make a play on the initial rush. As a professional coach and player, I believe it is the biggest inhibitor of development that exists in youth hockey.
