Improve your Hockey Coaching, with great drills, techniques & training plans

Pass on the move and Getting back into the groove

This week the Sportplan team are sending you two great sessions, ideal for all ages and abilities, which look at how you can improve your players' passing on the move and kick start your season with a high intensity 'wake up' session!

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Session 1: Kick start your season with this fun session!

Whether your players are just coming together or mid-way through their seasons it's always important to set the tempo right and give a clear indication of what you expect from them. To help you get this message across clearly and wipe the sleep from your players' eyes we created this basic skills session.

Working on simple passing techniques mixed in with lots of foot movement exercises you'll get your players bending and moving, working on their key skills to ensure they're match ready. Look out for proper technique though, eyes up, knees bent, back straight and ball slightly in front - no slacking!

Wake up sleepy Jean! - full members can log in download it now, or you can upgrade today.

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Session 2: Improving Passing on the Move - Thinking about the self pass

To make sure your players are prepared for passing on the move we start with a set of basic dribbling skills, warming them up, before looking at one touch passing, putting the right pace on the ball and sliding the ball behind the defender.

With the relatively recent introduction of the self pass rule the ability to pass on the move is even more important as defenders are required to give attackers more space.

Pass and move! - full members can log in download it now, or you can upgrade today.

Two terrific hockey sessions - Pass on time and defend as one

This week the Sportplan team are sending you two fantastic sessions, working on passing and defending as a unit. Have a look, try them with your team and see what Sportplan can bring to your coaching.

Sportplan Session 1: Passing on time!

When they're on the ball in a game situation players can sometimes experience rabbit in the headlights syndrome, this is when they panic and hold onto the ball too long, missing the perfect passing opportunity and eventually running into a dead end. To stop this happening to your players we've created a session which works on the two Ps - Passing and Pressure.

By creating a pressured game situation your players will improve on their ability to cope under pressure. Working in pairs players will need to time their passing if they want to keep possession and get around the lone defender. Throughout the course of this passing session your players will learn how to make the right decision and pass the ball before the opportunity has passed them by.

Play the pass - full members can log in download it now, or you can upgrade today.

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Sportplan Session 1: Defending as one

One on one situations are incredibly daunting for all players, especially if you're the last man back! To try and make sure this doesn't happen to your players we've created this team defending session which aims to get your players working in packs to hunt down the ball, starting with your forwards.

Just like with the three musketeers your players should adopt the motto "All for one and one for all" when defending. One player should go to meet the ball with another player covering the space behind them. To help you coach this message we've designed this session to get your defence playing as a unit. In the first drill they will need to work together if they want to stand any chance of pushing the opposition's players outside of the grid without using their hands. This is only one of the fantastic drills in this week's session.

Defend as one. All for one and one for all! - full members can log in download it now, or you can upgrade today.

Prevent Pinball Passing and Use the Full Pitch Width

This week Sportplan brings you two fantastic sessions for you to use at your next training - working on getting your players to use the full width on the pitch and also introducing younger players to overload situations.

Session 1: Prevent pinball hockey - introducing 2 Vs. 1 situations to younger players

Being confident when in possession of the ball can be one of the hardest skills for players to learn - often young players are like pinball tables, bouncing the ball away as quickly as they can to someone else to avoid losing the ball. Whilst this is good for passing it's bad for moving the ball up the pitch, so to help your players keep hold of the ball for longer we've created a session to ease younger players into taking on their man in an overload situation.

Starting with some simple stick skills, including the Indian dribble, the reverse stick drag and the sweep pass, your players will start working on their two-pronged attacks, working in pairs to overload the single defender and give themselves the best chance at getting a shot on goal. Decision making will also come into play, sometimes it will be best to take on the defender and others the easy pass will cut out the defender completely.

This attacking session has been designed for younger players and can be spread across two whole sessions to fully instil confidence on the ball in your players and encourage them to make life difficult for the opposition's defence.

Prevent pinball hockey today - full members can download it now, or you can upgrade today.

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Session 2: Using the width to go forward

Using the whole width of the pitch to stretch your opposition and create space to drive into seems perfectly logical to coaches. However, even though they play on it week in week out it can often seem that your players fail to realise that the hockey pitch is a whopping 55 meters wide (180 feet). To make sure your players use the full size of the pitch to their advantage this week's second Sportplan session looks at improving running with the ball and turning with the ball to open out and play a decisive pass into space.

Although this session is focussed on attacking play your defenders will have to work hard to deal with being pulled in all directions by clever passing and moving. Working through this session your players will start with some simple passing and moving before using that movement to catch defenders on the wrong foot and play the ball up field. Lastly we finish with a two team game with a difference - there's four goals, two goals per team! The winning team will be the one who uses the width to go forward.

Spread the ball and stretch the defence - full members can download it now, or you can upgrade today.