Reinventing Hockey Player Development
Building A Roadmap To Compete With North American Women's Olympic Hockey
Yes, this isn’t your typical Sunday newsletter. As the first thank you for your support, we wanted to share something that we feel deserves its own special release.
Reinventing Development
Darryl Belfry, who we have profiled before, recently dropped a thought-provoking six-page document in which he argued what European nations should do to get on par and/or eventually overtake Canada/USA’s women’s hockey dominance. At its core, it’s all about player development.
You can read the entire document here.
This will be a mix of Belfry’s words and my own thoughts, to help illuminate the knowledge and thought processes behind the ideas. While there is no one major game-changing idea; interlocking, self-reinforcing networks of small actions compound and become extremely valuable. Let’s start with some of Belfry’s points:
Major Challenges
1) You need depth to build depth
Depth of talent allows all players to push each other forward. Without depth, it’s difficult to push all levels of players toward their maximum potential.
2) Attracting top coaching, development, and sport science minds
Aside from sheer depth, the best and brightest minds help players grow. Having more of the top minds represented in the women’s game is of the utmost importance.
One example that he mentioned is Tomas Pacina with Team Czechia. He has a renowned career in player development and has implemented a unique style of play.
3) More of the same will lead to more of the same
Without new ideas and thinking, these countries will be unable to turn these challenges into opportunities.
Acknowledgment of the challenge (rather than the head in the sand Ostrich approach) is the only hope. Cooperative investment in new infrastructure is the only for innovation and, ultimately, progress.
Establishing a Coalition
1) Establishing a European Coalition, Advisory Board + Starting a New League
Belfry’s recommendation is for hockey nations in Europe to cooperate beyond their own borders. This allows for depth and leverage player depth. Under one umbrella, they can work together to consolidate talent and have maximum impact amongst all stakeholders.
What we want is for is our top minds to have the maximum impact possible.
2) Competitive environment is viewed as developmental
Often, competition and development are viewed as an either/or proposition. But in this instance, we’re talking about creating an environment and conditions that quicken and enhance each player’s development through improved competition.
Reinventing the Relationship between Competition & Development
The League wouldn’t play a traditional league schedule - the schedule would be a sliding scale of development/competition through each season.
Early = High practice/training to game ratio
Late = Slide the scale to increase competition and games
The build throughout the season would feature specific performance objectives that extend well beyond traditional league winning/losing and goals/assists. We wrote about measuring game performance in the past.
The Olympic cycle is 4 years. In the first 3, there would be a high focus on training to competition transfers. A proposed year’s 1-3 model:
Divide the season into multiple development phases with performance peaks to illustrate/ evaluate development growth.
Create cooperation amongst coaches to adapt the competitive rules to match the development phase objectives
Stack the phases so they are interdependent - one phase sets the foundation directly for the next
Below is where the on-ice specific golden nuggets lay… Upgrade to “Supporter” to finish reading.