Beyond the Game: The Science of Developing Elite High School Hockey Players

36 hours of travel, 4 games, 3 sleepless nights, and a headache for the Richter scale. And I hadn’t even played a game myself.

That was what it felt like as a support staff coming off a weeklong showcase in Minnesota during our “off-week” in 2021. To think these young kids were not only doing this on the regular, but doing it with a smile, opens one’s eyes to say the least. To add, we got home at 6:30am and they were off to school by 10am, after a “sleep in”, like it was a normal day. Later that week the majority of them set their best jumps of the season. How the hell did they do it?

It would seem already at a glance that the average student is robotic in nature given every moment is accounted for and directed by action. However, the hockey player’s take it a step further. Tacking onto all that is required of them already, the hockey teams routinely travel 3-4 days weekly from September until the end of March for tournaments, showcases, and league games, often cutting into breaks and long weekends. Travelling as far as Minnesota for week long showcases and as close as across the river to host schools for league play.

Both teams on top of school are in a daily training environment which consists of regular morning skates, daily training with an S&C (yours truly), and an hour long team practice. Some players might accumulate 3 hours of ice & training in a single day outside of class hours. Turning out repeat NHL draft picks, and player placements in the USHL, NAHL, NCDC, BCHL, ECHL, and QMJHL this program exposes student-athletes to early professionalism and specialization. Words I don’t throw around lightly, but are suited in this circumstance.

The program is a well oiled machine with its inception taking place in 2009 and getting upgraded in the past 8 years with the on-boarding of full time coaching staff with coaching resumes and playing experience the length of a 10 person family shopping list. Of those hires was a full time strength and conditioning coach to take on team training, athlete monitoring, return to play protocols, and year round physical preparation. That would be me.

The task was no small one and started off with whiteboard workouts consisting of push-ups, sit-ups, and stair runs and is now akin to that of what you see in American colleges. An upgrade to say the least and is a byproduct of relentless trial and errors with the help of all involved. With players going on to have successful D1, QMJHL, and NHL careers, the need for high quality youth development and a system that consistently pumps out high level products was not just key, but necessary.

Over the course of the next few parts I will uncover the best practices for planning & programming for engagement, evaluating athlete preparedness, and monitoring athlete stress & load management in the competitive highschool environment. For 7 years I have routinely built, revised, tried, failed, and developed a system that suits these youth players to a degree that sustains consistent growth without developmental interference, and these are the key non-training variables I have come to identify as critical in planning and programming for engagement in this setting.

• Environment
• Variety
• Education

Environment is a leading consideration of mine as it drives intent, engagement, and interpersonal relationships. Barre none, the most attributable aspect to the development of youth athletes, as it fosters a passive education on the need for intent, the importance of a relationship with health and training, and strongly correlates with youth male neural plasticity. This age group however, is tricky and involves some critical considerations regarding age, sex, rate of maturation (PWV & PHV), training tenure, experience, response to stimuli, and psychosocial status. And thus, creating an environment suitable for engagement through routine competition, variety, and immaculate vibes, is at the forefront of planning.

How can we maximize the environment to suit the intention of the session without mitigating the tools required to drive the adaptation and without being too dull? Environment is equal parts Psychological, Social, and Physical. Tapping into each part, especially early on in a session, drastically improves engagement and facilitates high session completion.

Environment non-negotiables:

Music: Sets tone, mood, and is psychologically associated with self driven motivation, intent, and engagement. One speaker, one person who controls the music (best if you have an assistant or senior athlete), and start off each session with a banger everyone enjoys! 100% correlation with vibes.

Light: Keep the room, hallway, or gym bright! If you can include mirrors even better. The light keeps the mind sharp, the mirrors add an element of vanity that drives intent and engagement, and helps the brain associate training with go time.

Space: Although this is tricky for many, having enough space or divvying up portions of a room to groups, is crucial in maximizing flow in the gym and keeps the stream from clogging up so to speak. Flow = engagement.

Compete: Athletes play sports to compete. Using small partner-to-partner or group challenges encourages early engagement, primes the mind & body, and is guaranteed to fire up some big smiles!

What we’re doing in a session matters tremendously. With a boatload of responsibilities piled on their plates, it’s no wonder training is often the last thing kids want to do. Tackling the psychological component as a primary consideration eliminates this and sets a foundation for training as both a priority and an escape from other responsibilities.

Variation is critical in youth development as it does two things; provides novel stimulus and reduces session to session dullness. The youth brain, especially male brains, are plastic and can absorb a great deal of information. But can also be overwhelmed quite easily. This is why applying basic periodization models to your underlying session plan is critical to mitigate overstimulation and randomness in their development. We must continually remember that athletic development is long term development and thus requires both short term and long term considerations. Variation in session to session elements can greatly benefit engagement, but if it becomes all encompassing it can cause equal damage. It cannot be understated that monotony in training is important, to a degree, and for the most part required.

What I’ve found to be extremely productive is creating variety in these three ways:

1. Groups: Allocating athletes to specific groups to enforce individualization, enhances flow of session, effective resource management, and creates session to session variety whilst maintaining linear progression. (More on this in a moment)
2. Pre-session games: Daily challenges between individuals or in smaller teams is a staple and an effective way to help set the tone of the session, actively warm-up their bodies and shake off the cobwebs of a long school day, and allows us to microdose multidirectional speed/mobility/muscular endurance/SAQ.
3. A/B model: Using an A-B undulating model whereby there is a week A and a week B which allows for weekly variation whilst still maintaining linear periodization of specific biomotors.

If I have not already, I’m sure this part will invoke a bit of scrutiny. Early specialization and professionalism is not something I like to attribute to youth athletic development, but fully omitting something due to an age or level of experience is in my opinion ignorant and lacking full depth. When it comes to youth development, the goal is fun, sustainable, and repeatable. This does not negate the use of “complex” models and methods, it comes down to how you expose them to these models & methods, otherwise you’re simply throwing snowballs at a fire.

Grouping athletes based on athletic traits has been an effective way for me to efficiently allocate resources, mitigate session dullness, and drive engagement. A byproduct of this is athletes having a sense of individualization (because everyone is special), group management (self driven), and quite frankly amazing results across the board.

I use a 3 group model influenced by Tanner Care’s flow chart for bucketing, whereby the combination of visual evaluation and force plate jump & Isometric tests dictate athlete grouping.

It’s fair to assume most do not have access to forceplates or jump mats, and for that matter I wish to outline a simple procedure to evaluate and group.

Visual evaluation:

Use your coaching eye, it’s rarely wrong. Elastic athletes are your springy athletes, lean, MF IIa/iix dominant. They’re your fastest athletes and often look more like twigs than trunks. Force dominant athletes are your Ox’s, they’re typically muscular in nature, hip dominant in their jump methods, and might be amongst your best sprinters or jumpers, but struggle to repeatedly produce consistent outputs.

Credit: Tanner Care

Force dominant athletes fall into the force expression group. For the force group, your weaker athletes, less coordinated, slower, and typically can’t produce much force in a jump (height & speed), lift (<1-1.5xBW in most lifts), and struggle to manipulate their own bodyweight (SAQ, Jumps, and Chin-ups).

EUR:

Utilizing the Eccentric Utilization Ratio, although not perfect, is still a good way to bucket as it provides insight into the methods of jump, the use of force, and SSC efficiency.

Plotting jump heights:

You can use all sorts of methods for jump height; counting frames, sticking tape on a wall & measuring reach, or Vertec. Once you have at least 3 scores from each athlete you can plot them. Natural population distribution will take place (most likely) and from that you can allocate athletes to groups, whereby athletes on the left side of the curve will be your Force deficient athletes, middle = Force Expression, and right = Elastic. This is a loose method, but at least gives you direction and you can make adjustments as needed.

An alternative approach to adding variation to your training structure is adopting an A/B undulating model whereby you periodize a 4-12 week blocks with alternating weeks. Week A would have what I call a Lower body super power bias and week B an upper body superpower bias. Based on session structure (which will be covered in another post) you can allocate your primary lifts to enhancing the athlete’s superpower or kryptonite, placing concentrated energy into developing key physical qualities (which are determined by group allocation).

This effectively allows you to place adequate stress on the body to drive neurological and or morphological adaptations without diminishing the capacity to perform. It’s essentially a form of microdosing.

Let’s say you’re in season and know 100% you’ll get to train the team 3 times a week. Adopting the A/B model allows you to effectively run two programs in parallel adding a degree of non-interfering novel stimulus and enough variety to avoid dullness from setting in. It’s been effective for me in prolonging exposure to specific trait development, which oftentimes can be monotonous to youth athletes.

Credit: Tanner Care

With the incessant over exposure of social media and the lack of practiced self reflection, our youth athletes are left to be manipulated by media that is designed to attract and not educate. The result is oftentimes athletes developing beliefs or ideologies around training that has no bearing on what it is they actually need. Re-educating has been a vital component in developing youth athletes as it enhances learning experiences, solidifies sound training principles, and facilitates open dialogue that allows for both questioning and self development as coach and athletes.

As high school. College, or even professional team coaches, we are at the mercy of the athlete’s decisions and history. Whereby we are oftentimes taking in athletes with prior experience (good or bad) or “losing” athletes for extended periods of time (holidays, injuries, trades, and call ups) which can derail the narrative we are trying to develop. Without consistent input, physical or psychological, it can be hard to adequately develop youth athletes. They simply do not have the prerequisite neural capacity to conduct decisions with depth or consideration for short and long term effects, and thus it becomes our primary goal to ensure we instill sound practices, develop lasting habits, and continue to educate youth athletes in digestible manors that are suited to their cognitive capacity.

These are the ways i’ve found to be the most insightful as a coach and impactful as an athlete when it comes to providing & receiving education:

1. Consistency: Avoid overcoaching, but be present and coach as consistently as you can. Don’t come in one day and be a mechanics snob, then sit back the next. Find a happy medium. Athletes pick up on your level of engagement and attention to details. They know if you work with some more than others, so be equally consistent in your practice as you are in what you preach.
2. Clarity: Remember your demographic. Speak in understandable sentences, use the appropriate nomenclature, but use simple associative examples that drive your point home. Be consistent with what you say, they’ll catch you if you say different things week to week. Have an answer, even if it’s not complete or how you’d like it, their attention spans are short and require immediate answers. Review your session beforehand and prepare answers based on common areas of confusion from other sessions, and be self reflective.
3. Simplicity: like clarity, how and what you say is critical, keep it simple and digestible. Avoid getting caught up being an encyclopedia and “showing off” your knowledge. They just want an answer and an example.
4. Attention: If 3 or more athletes are consistently performing movements wrong, asking the same questions, or simply don’t know what’s going on, that means the majority is likely in the same boat. This calls for attention, bringing the group in, calming the noise and heart rates, and giving a detailed explanation. This is the best way to touch on several points, make clear associations, and drive greater overarching points home.
5. Formal education: I support giving more than they can handle in small doses. Same goes for education. As much as it is important to consistently simply clarify, it is also good to expose them to in depth knowledge and expertise, as this showcases your abilities which drives their respective comfort and trust in you, as well as provides them clear concise knowledge on elements they may be interacting with outside of training on their own time.

Suggested practices for formal education that have been homeruns with my athletes over the course of 8 seasons are:

• Nutrition: Basics of nutrition is a huge topic and is extremely important at this age, and thus takes a front seat in topic presentations. It’s a low hanging fruit that all coaches should target.
• What is S&C?: This can target training vs working out, roles & responsibilities, injury mitigation, load management, and paint a picture of how this type of training enhances performance.
• Why do we do XYZ? Over time you will pick up on common questions or transgressions due to preconceived notions on training and methods to obtain specific skillsets…gather these and explain why we do things alternatively to what they might see online, learnt from other coaches, or were told to them by parents. Be introspective and question your methods as well, make sure you’re not being too biased.

Complex situations call for simple solutions…or so they say. The reality when working with youth athletes however is not so simple. To drive adaptations, create an inviting environment, and educate youth athletes requires careful consideration and a great deal of adaptability. Being introspective, questioning yours and others methods, and cultivating a multi angled approach to planning & programming allows you to solve problems effectively, drive engagement, and suit the needs of both the athlete and sporting demands in a chaotic environment.