DRILL OF THE WEEK
DOTW: Ottawa Centre Circle
“We love this drill as a warm up activity. Its great for defenders to get comfortable moving in all 4 directions with the puck, and making accurate breakout passes, as well as making sure forwards understanding timing, route and stick position when breaking up ice”
This is a great drill to run at the start of practice to get everyone’s feet moving, and once its started it will run itself for as long as you need it to with plenty of people active, but plenty of coaching points to refer back to that could have a big impact on practice elements later in the session.
Put all the pucks in the centre circle, and have forwards line up on all 4 blue line corners, with D lined up centre blue line – all facing centre ice.
- The D will collect a total of 3 pucks from the centre, and back them out to the blue line before hitting their forward with a pass – giving them time to come low and swing away up ice.
- Diagonally opposite forwards go at the same time and receive the pass from the D on the far blue line, then skating to the net for a shot, and staying for a screen/tip on the next forward.
- After both sides have received the puck, the D collects a third and makes an ‘escape’, carrying the puck to the far offensive zone and shooting through a 2 forward screen.
There are multiple progressions you can adapt the drill, and these are just a limited selection, one of our favourite things about this drill is that its only limited by your imagination.
- Have the D collect pucks on forehand/backhand only
- D can make a variety of moves before making the pass; fakes, turnaways, pivots etc
- Forward routes can be changed or adapted, for example instead of a hook back up the wall to be hit in stride, you could ask them to pivot around the NZ face-off dot always facing the puck.
