Floorball – Taking care of the results

Usually you only see the hard results, your score in the football game, your position in the league and so on. Many times you forget to see the progress and results in the “soft” parts, like working together (teamwork), better communication, team spirit etc. The majority of coaches are judged purely on results and in many cases, purely on immediate success rather on their performance level connected to the pre-requisites.

Working together as a floorball team

Even if it’s the hard results that will count in floorball, but the soft results will make the right prerequisites for the hard results!

Floorball – Sorry I can’t hear you, my ego is calling for attention

Tune in the communication frequency

When you talk about communication you often talk about sender and receiver, and if it would be only a question of these two roles, communication would be easy. But communication takes time and has more aspects to consider, you have competence, experience, expectations and the environment that can affect your communication. If you have a great competence and experience in some subject it will probably affect the way you express yourself and depending on the receiver’s competence and experience your message will be interpreted in different ways. The receiver will also be affected of his/her expectations on your message and could sometimes also “shut off” in certain situations, because he/she “knows” what’s coming.

game3

The environment will of course affect your message, during a game there could be noise from the crowd/parents that will disturb the communication.

Are you with me, does it make sense, yes…

When you are talking look at your players are they listening, are they “here”. Are they looking at you, nodding or shaking their heads?

It can be hard to check if your players have understood your message if you do it like most of us do, by asking, have you understand? And the answer will be, yes!

What if you just asked someone of the players to summarize shortly what you have said, so everyone has the same picture of the message and you would get a receipt of understanding.

Youth Floorball tactics and feedback

This same rule goes for you as a leader receiving a question from your players, summarize what you have heard and answer after that, so you know you answer to the question he/she actually wants the answer to, not what you expect or guess he/she asks about.

Sorry I can’t hear you, my ego want’s some attention

To be able to understand someone else you need to understand the other parts point of view, and this can be hard if you self are having a different view or are eager to express your “brilliant” idea / comment / question etc, but there is a good rule, you need to let go of your own perspective in order to be able to understand someone else. In practice this means you can not think of your own picture when you are trying to understand the picture the other one is painting, this goes for all of us.

 

“Many people have so big egos screaming so loudly, that they aren’t able to hear what others are saying”

Team and Individual Values – Norway

To get the best team spirit and values within the team. The Norwegian National Team defined some team value words and the meaning of them in practice.

Norway scoring goal against Germany Hockey World Championships

“Can we control results or the outcome from a game? No, but we can control our physical preparation, our action and our values!”

Team Values – To beat the best teams!

– Disciplin (extremely good carrying through, we cannot afford careless performance)
– Engagement (We make each other good, and the opposite team bad)
– Enthusiasm (Positive body language)
– Clear roles and ownership of the role
– Desperation (work / practice hard and with discipline twice / day)

How do you show this when you step in to the changing room? How is your body language? What do you stand for?

Desperation Succesful Team Values Norway

Inspire your self and your teammates to success!

Norway made one of their best World Championship Tournament results in 2012, they were “unlucky” to meet the coming world champions Russia early in the Play Off’s, a thing they could not control (who they will meet), but they were well prepared, 2-2 in the third period…
Russia 5 – 2 Norway (Quarter finals)
Russia 6 – 2 Finland (Semi-finals)
Russia 6- 2 Slovakia (Final)

Floorball Goalie Trainer or Goal Scoring Coach

You can have a Floorball Head Coach, assistant coach, defense coach, goalie trainer and other coaching or support functions around the floorball team, but who is the goal scoring coach or trainer?

Floorball goal scoring coach or goalie trainer

This subject was discussed during the International Hockey Coaching Symposium I attended during the World Championships in ice hockey in Sweden / Finland, together with all the Swedish Elite hockey coaches.

Torgny Bendelin, a famous Swedish hockey coach talked about this topic. Hockey and also floorball on elite level is changing, the game is faster, harder, quicker and the time players have to make their decissions is reduced to a minimum.

In hockey and I think also in floorball a lot of time has been put in to develop the skills of the goalies, with help from special goalie trainers. The goalies are good in positioning and working with different angles towards the shooter.

Floorball goalie drills or shooting practices

Therefore the players need to:
– Shoot quickly or quicker than before
– Shoot with precision
– Shoot hard/fast
– “Hide” the shot
– Shoot unannounced

These are the areas you also need to practice if you want to be a good future goal scorer in floorball.

This topic will continue in later posts…

Floorball – Tell your players what you want from them

After you get to know your floorball players, and you’ve discovered what they want, it’ll be time to explain to them what you want from them. Go ahead, be honest, you’ll gain nothing by lying to your floorball players. Tell them what you want from them and what you will do for them. Make sure that your floorball players have the opportunity to ask you for help.

Floorball practices and drills for 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 year olds

Make sure that you take this process very seriously! You’ll refer back to this over and over again during your floorball season. When floorball players start to drag, remind them of what you are trying to do for them. Be prepared to ask them how you can help them.  Always remember, the floorball coach works for his players harder than they work for him.  He sets the tone. A floorball coach that is not working his tail off has no business asking his floorball players to do the same.