We’ve written in the past about how speed differential is a key principle in creating space, and today we’re going to dissect another way to create space, through deception.
Deception is doing the unexpected. There are three key ingredients that we’re going to dive into.
The Three Parts of Magic
The 2006 classic “The Prestige” has an incredible scene in which Michael Caine explains the “three parts of magic”.
The Pledge
“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called The Pledge. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it probably isn’t.”
The game of hockey has tons of patterns. Using those ordinary patterns to your advantage starts by showing the opponent that this situation is just like everything else they’ve seen before. Nothing to see here, folks…
The Turn
“The second act is called The Turn. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back.”
At this point, the move has been masked under a normal hockey pattern. In “the turn”, the unexpected becomes a reality.
The Prestige
That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.
Deception is great, but its purpose is to increase the effectiveness of the play. At this point, you must finish executing.
Connor McDavid has been known to pull off these types of magic tricks from time to time.
Pledge - Cutting across the middle and waiting for help. His head never looks toward the goal.
Turn - A quick turn and acceleration toward the goal
Prestige - Finishing the play and scoring
The Value of Deception in Hockey
Deception keeps your opponents on their toes. If an opponent knows what you’re going to do, they can easily come up with a strategy to prevent you from executing.
A great example would be in the shootout. As a shooter, you don’t want to tip your hand to the goalie. Here, Cleveland, Ohio, native Mike Rupp and T.J. Oshie go over strategy.
Oshie uses 2-3 moves consistently, and they all start the same way.
Pledge - Slight right to left to right arcing movement
Turn - Quick move to one of his go-to moves (five-hole, backhand deke, forehand deke)
Prestige - Score goal
Here is the full 2014 Olympic shootout where Oshie scored four shootout goals to win the game.
It Starts Before the Game
“Possibly because the British character is normally simple and straightforward, more probably because our military training is stereotyped and unimaginative, deception of the enemy does not seem to come naturally to us. Hence we are apt to suffer in the field through lack of guile and to fall too easily into the enemy’s traps and to miss opportunities of setting traps of our own” - Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, July 1942
At young ages, you’ll see plenty of players with tons of deception. As they age, you’ll often see less and less creativity, as coaches do their work. I caution my coaches about over-coaching and removing deception from our player’s games.
Playing with deception may lead to the odd turnover. Even so, we (coaches) should be encouraging deception in practice, and showing players the value of adding layers to their game. As Wavell mentioned, if lacking deception… “we are apt to suffer in the field.”
Roman Josi
Dan had the great opportunity to be at the 88 Summit with some of the greatest hockey players in the world. Even in that high-level player pool, one defenseman stuck out: Roman Josi.
Why? Josi would be looking off every pass, even routine ones.
It’s no wonder why Josi is difficult to contain: his habits are strong and consistently keep opponents on their toes.
Deceptive Examples
Shooting:
Changing blade angles
Changing the shot lane
Passing:
Look one way, pass another
Skating:
Changes of speed
Did you enjoy this newsletter?
Help us spread the ideas within and share it with the people you care about