I’m today fully engaged as a hockey coach in a youth team and “partly” involved in different floorball asignments. What I can see is that floorball players playing hockey are mostly extremely skilled in stickhandling and they are also a head regarding game understanding, WHY? I think it’s simply because you don’t need to focus on learning skating. Therefore in floorball you can focus on stickhandling and game understanding at an earlier stage than in hockey, and as a hockey coach I’m greatly thankfull for that support from floorball to my players in my hockey team.
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Floorball vs. Hockey from a coach perspective Part 1
Floorball vs. hockey, I think this is the way it’s seen among hockey and floorball coaches and you have a lot of preconceptions involved among the coaches, which are also very often transferred to the players and already there you have a huge barrier to break through, if you would like to try to combine the participation between these two sports, hockey and floorball.
Hockey – “Floorball is for weak hockey players” or “Hockey for girls”
Floorball – “Hockey is extremely expensive” or “Hockey players have the wrong values, they are too macho!”
With these and similar statements, you create a huge conflict to a young floorball or hockey player who would like to try or start with one of the sports, which side should you choose (many times a young players parent will choose for them)?
I don’t think you should choose one side, I think you should try to combine these two sports, hockey and floorball, if it’s possible, since they will be complementary to each and other and improve the players in general.
So instead of seeing the benefits from combining floorball and hockey, when you are dealing with young floorball or hockey players, the focus is put on building barriers, starting from many coaches or sometimes parents?
Floorball game drill 2 vs. 0, 2-1 or 1-1
Floorball drill to the left. P1 runs with ball at the border and makes a turn towards the border. P2 runs past and receives a pass from P1 at the short end. P2 break in front of the goal and takes a shot. P1 takes P2 position and the floorball drill starts over again.
…or P1 runs into the middle and receives a pass from the P2 que, P1 takes a shot.
…or P1 runs into the middle and receives a pass from the P2 que, P2 and comes up after his/her shot and P1 and P2 play 1 on 1 towards the goal.
Floorball practice to the right
P1 runs with the ball at the border and turns towards the centre and creates therefore space for P2 at the border. P2 runs behind P1, P1 passes the ball to P2, who takes a shot or passes the ball back to P1 who takes the shot.
Make the floorball drill to the right 2-1 or 2-2
You can add one or two defensemen into this floorball practice to make it 2 vs 1 or 2 vs 2. The defensive players can follow P1 and P2 or meet up from the short end.
Fake a pass to the border
P1 can also make a pass feint towards the border and continue with the ball in the middle and take the shot. P2 goes then for the rebound.
Floorball – What makes up personality?
Psychological core – The deepest component in making up our personality includes our values, attitudes, interests and motives. This is “the real you”, this part also include our beliefs about our selves and self confidence.
Typical Responses – The ways we adjust to the environment, or how we most likely will respond in different situations, happy, shy, open, want to be in the center of attention etc. Sometimes people can be wrongly judged on their typical responses, if you only see a person once or the first time in a team and that person is “shy”, he/she is easily put in to the “shy” box, but it might just be the current situation that created the typical response, it’s not the way this person usually acts.
Role related behavior – This behavior is the most changeable aspect of our personality. Different situations require different roles, during the day you might switch between some of these roles, football coach, dad/mum, husband/wife, employee, friend etc.
Knowing your floorball players will help you in your coach role and in coaching the team and the individuals. You know the basics how your players are and probably will act in certain situations. Knowing your players well, will also help you to understand their “driving force”. Motives may though change over time, so you need to continue to follow up and understand why your players are there, to be able to motivate them in a right way.
Close realtionships
There is a statement that goes, the deeper your relationships, the stronger your leadership. True? I don’t have the right answer, but if you look at José Mourinho it can be true.
Materazzi might not be a “Firts Teamer”, but this video shows how valued he was for Mourinho and the team, even on the bench.
If you study José Mourinhos leadership and relation to the players, it’s sometimes described as father – son relation, or that he is the big brother the players are looking up to. If you have that kind of a close relation, he probably knows his players quite good. Of course you can know your players well without having a father – son relation, and it will work well!
“Compared to Rafa Benitez, Mourinho had more close relation to the players and was more open and humoristic” /Javier Zanetti
Youth Floorball and Hockey – Can these be combined?
Floorball and hockey will be the theme for a couple of posts and I rather talk about floorball and hockey (combination / co-operation), than floorbal vs. hockey (competition), even if I will be forced to use floorball vs. hockey as well.
This first post will be a general post about hockey and floorball and the first question is, can these two sports floorball and hockey benefit from each other?
I think they absolutely can, floorball and hockey are very similar sports when it comes to required technical skills, tactics, game understanding and systems. The first and hard practical obstacle will be in combining these two sports, since both are played during the same season (winter). Therefore both floorball and hockey will be “fighting” to get the same athletes/youth players into their teams.
I think co-operation between hockey and floorball is the key. At least in the teams I’m engaged in “we” have managed to do this, hockey practices are mainly on Mondays and Thursdays and floorball practices are on Wednesdays, co-operation instead of competition.
I will continue to dig into this theme in several posts, from a coach perspective, a player perspective and a parents perspective.