Floorball – coach for the right reasons

With the way most of our live and work these days, we have an increasingly isolated lifestyle. We sprint from our homes to our jobs, and then from our jobs to the grocery store, or to our children’s schools… and then if we’re lucky, from there to a quick dinner before collapsing into the sofa or bed, so we can get some sleep before the next day’s race. There is never time to become part of our community, never really time to do more than survive?

Coaching Young floorball players allows us to be part of the answer. Study after study has shown that when children are involved in organized activities like in floorball teams, they do better in school and within their families. So the real question isn’t how can we make time for this, it’s more like, how can we not make time for this?

Floorball practice shooting drill

I think we’ve all met the bad coach, the unreasonable guy who treats eight year olds like they are adult men in a NHL team. But we’ve also met the guy who motivates his floorball players to try new things in life, and to learn about self confidence and teamwork. You know… he’s the guy that we aspire to be, the one who generates respect from his players and their families. It really isn’t that hard… if you are coaching for the right reasons.

Floorball feedback, value it

and, always… coach for the right reasons. You are not involved with children in order to make all of them floorball superstars or national team heroes, you are coaching them into being better people …besides developing theire floorball skills.

 

Floorball – Food is fuel

In order to incorporate these healthy snacks in to your floorball team, it’s a good idea to send home a flyer to the floorball parents outlining what is, and what is not acceptable as a floorball team snack. Make sure that everyone is signed up to bring a snack on floorball games and sometimes as well on floorball practices.

Floorball youth practices and drills

Food is fuel, and just like a high performance vehicle will sputter and die if you don’t have fuel, so will your floorball team and star players stumble and lose steam at a critical moment in the game, if you don’t have eaten correctly before the floorball game. Make sure your floorball players know about this and eat healthy and you’ll see a big difference in their performance in the floorball rink.

Floorball – Dealing with conflicts

Floorball coaching by its nature can be very stressful. The floorball head coach has agreed to place himself in a situation where he will repeatedly face conflict. Over the course of a floorball season, the head coach will likely have disputes with opposing coaches and game officials, as well as from his or her own floorball players and their family members / parents. No matter what a floorball coach decides to do, it is highly likely that his decision will be questioned or even resisted by someone.

Waiting time at floorball practice before a drill

So what’s a coach to do about this? Well, the first thing that a new coach has to understand is that it WILL happen. It is unavoidable, conflict will continually pop up as long as you are coaching. Quite honestly, if you can’t accept this now… quit, save yourself the mental anguish. But if you decide to remain, then you are going to need some help in dealing with it. Some tools and other posts are found on this site, use the search function or keywords.

Floorball is bigger than Ice Hockey in Denmark

I will continue with the learnings from the coaching training, I attended during the World Championships in hockey. Next up Denmark…

Per Bäckman the head coach of Denmarks national hockey team and Esben Nedermark GM Danish National Hockey Team started their presentation, with talking about how small sport hockey is in Denmark.

Danish hockey has:
– 4400 registered players
– 16 teams
– 24 indoor rinks

While there are:
– 5000 hockey officials/referees in Toronto
– 296818 licensed football players in Denmark
– 5800 badminton players in Denmark
and 6000 Floorball players : )

Still Denmark is in the highest division in hockey, I will altough also talk about Norway, they have done an impressive work, with small resources!

What have Denmark done then?

One of the focus areas have been to have short and quick attacks, if you have not scored after 15 seconds you can give the ball (puck) to the other team, like the Norwegian national football team manager “Drillo” Olsen once said.

The Danish team have also been working with tactic and the discipline to stick to it, teambuilding, social environment and technical skills (opposite to Norway). What they are not good in regarding the national team coaches, is the physical part, they are too weak. The hard practicing culture is not there…

About the future…

Regarding the future for Danish hockey, Per Bäckman was quite negative, “we are at the top now, we will not get better, and we will not get more players or rinks, we need to take care of what we have now and try to maintain that.”

Wrong attitude…

In my mind totally wrong attitude, you will always need development and try to recruit new players and develop the game, players and teams, the same goes for floorball. When you think you can not develop or are satisfied, you will start to roll down the hill you are climbing and be eliminated in the end!

Denmark hockey and floorball
Danish Hockey a good story (name of the presentation) – They have done a good work, but it will not last for so long, with the attitude I have described above…

“You have totally different view on game system and tactics than Sweden?”
“Yes, I can not understand, why you would chase another players on the ice for 60 minutes” /Per Bäckman

Dave Smith, NHL Officials Health and Wellness Coach

During the International Coaching Conference, we had the opportunity to listen to David T. Smith, the NHL officials health and wellness coach.

Dave Smith NHL Official Health and Wellness Coach

The NHL officials Health and Wellness program >>

National Hockey League Officials Fitness and Conditioning

  • This is a sample program for NHL Officials. As all people are different so are Fitness Programs, the following is used as a guideline with minimum standards for NHL Officials.
  • Consult your family doctor before starting any training program

Off season training

  • Start by setting some fitness goals for the start of the next season and focus on those throughout your program.
  • Incorporate and maintain good eating habits such as frequent small meals rather than a few large ones so your body is burning calories all day. Maintain a balanced diet between carbohydrates, fats and protein.
  • Incorporate a stretch and exercise routine before every training session.

Schedule

  • 5 days a week / Up to 2 hrs a day
  • Strength twice a week
  • Aerobics twice a week
  • Run, bike, roller blade or other activity once a week

Strength

  • Weight training utilizing a variety of programs with changes in repetitions, sets, tempo and exercises.
  • Push-ups using varying arm position and use of blocks
  • Sit ups, crunches – proper form is very important
  • Leg Strength (lunges, squats, step ups)

Aerobics

  • Use heart rate monitor to maximize training zones
  • Run – 15 min increasing to 60 min.
  • Ice sprints – 30 sec increasing to 60 sec.
  • Bike – 35 min increasing to 60 min.
  • Roller blade or Stairmaster
  • Jump rope and plyometric exercises with Resistance Bands to increase foot speed and agility

Cardiovascular Exercise (Run, Bike, Stepper or Glider)

  • Warm up (5 min)
  • 1 minute increasing intensity intervals for 30 min in your target heart rate zone
  • One minute work, one to two minutes rest intervals
  • Lower the intensity if you are not recovering to your original Heart Rate after first work/rest interval
  • Cool down (5 to 8 minutes)
  • You should monitor Heart rate at all times

Maintaining fitness during the season

  • 15- 20 minute warm up before games
  • Light jog, bike or jump rope to warm up muscles and joints and increase Heart Rate
  • Stretch and flexibility as a daily wellness program
  • Aerobic Exercise 2 or 3 times a week on non game days
  • Strength and Resistance exercises are done as travel and game schedule allows. Maintaining a base throughout the season will allow an easier transition into the off season training program and helps promote an overall healthy and productive lifestyle.

The program is picked from the NHL officials page >>

Dave Smith, NHL-official coach