Fun Drills for Young Hockey Players

Hockey is one of the fastest and most exciting sports for children and young adults. It’s fast-paced, dynamic, and difficult to play without practice. Featuring a dizzying combination of speed, skill, teamwork, and physicality, hockey can be thrilling game to play, but it isn’t easy for first-timers. Indeed, for young hockey players, developing the necessary fundamental skills needed to play on a frozen playing field can be daunting. Nevertheless, coaches and parents can make this process that much easier by ensuring that fun is the main objective. Focusing on enjoyment is key to keeping a child’s interest and can ensure that they are anxious to keep improving.

Coaches can do this by focusing on fun drills that emphasize essential skills like skating, stickhandling, passing, and shooting, thereby making practices enjoyable and fostering a love for the game. In this article, we will explore some fun, practical drills that coaches and parents can implement into their hockey players’ practice routines to keep them invested in the sport.

Why Fun Drills Matter for Young Hockey Players

Before diving into specific drills, it’s important that parents and coaches understand why fun is such a crucial component of youth sports, particularly when it comes to hockey. Kids generally start to build their skills from a young age, and their attitudes toward a sport are largely shaped by their early experiences. If practices are too repetitive or overly focused on competition, children may lose interest. That is why incorporating engaging and educational drills ensures that young players are improving while enjoying themselves.

Here are a few key reasons why fun drills are essential for young hockey players:

• Skill Development: It’s a simple fact. Children are more likely to stay focused and engaged in drills when they’re having fun. Drills that incorporate key skills like skating and shooting keep players motivated to improve, and have a lot of fun.
• Teamwork: Many drills are designed to emphasize collaboration and teamwork. These drills help build camaraderie and teach players the importance of working together, but are also fun, social undertakings.
• Positive Reinforcement: Drills that result in immediate feedback, such as scoring goals or completing passes, can help boost a young player’s confidence and encourage a positive attitude toward learning more.
• Increased Participation: If practice is fun, kids are more likely to attend. Moreover, children who have fun at practice are more likely to put in maximum effort.

On that subject let’s go ahead and break down some fun and effective drills for different aspects of the game.

Skating Drills

Skating is the foundation of hockey, and it’s critical that children become comfortable and confident on their skates from the get-go. Being confident on skates is of supreme importance to the sport, and it can make or break a young athlete. To make skating drills fun, coaches should add elements of competition and challenge while keeping the focus on balance, speed, and agility.

Freeze Tag on Ice

Objective: Freeze tag on ice is an exciting activity that can improve skating speed, agility, and the ability to change direction quickly.

How it Works:

• Coaches choose one or two players to be the “taggers” and the rest of the team to act as the “runners.”
• Runners skate around the rink trying to avoid being tagged by the taggers.
• Tagged players must “freeze” in place and stand still until another player touches them to “unfreeze” them.
• The game continues for a set amount of time, usually around 15-20 minutes, and the taggers try to freeze as many players as possible.

Why It’s Fun: Young kids love games, and freeze tag adds a competitive element to a basic skating drill. This makes for an it exciting group activity while improving quick changes in direction and speed.

Red Light, Green Light

Objective: Another drill inspired by a popular children’s game, Red Light, Green Light helps young players with stopping and starting, another essential skill in hockey.

How it Works:

• Coaches have players line up along the goal line.
• The coach then stands at the opposite end of the ice and calls out “green light” for the players to skate forward and “red light” to make them stop.
• On “green light,” players skate as fast as they can. On “red light,” they must stop immediately.
• Players who don’t stop in time, must go back to the starting line.

Why It’s Fun: The very nature of this drill makes it enjoyable while also teaching players the important skill of stopping quickly. These skills are critical for avoiding collisions and maintaining control throughout the game.

Relay Races

Objective: Sprints and running are a key practice method in many terrestrial sports. For ice hockey, there’s relay races. Not only do relay races help with speed and agility, they foster a competitive and fun environment.

How it Works:

• First, divide the team into two or three groups.
• Prior to the frill, coaches should set up cones or markers at various points on the ice.
• Players then race against each other while skating around the cones in a relay format.
• Each player takes a turn skating around the course and tagging the next teammate in order.

Why It’s Fun: Kids love races, that much has always been true. This drill lets young athletes compete against each other while simultaneously working on their skating abilities.

Stickhandling Drills

Stickhandling is another crucial skill for young hockey players. Drills that focus on puck control help young athletes develop better hand-eye coordination and feel for the puck. Coaches should incorporate fun elements into their stickhandling drills to keep practice lively and interesting.

Obstacle Course Stickhandling

Objective: Obstacle courses are a great way for kids to practice the necessary skills for a number of sports, but they can also be set up on the ice in a pinch. In this type of drill, players are encouraged to focus on stickhandling and puck control while weaving through obstacles.

How it Works:

• Coaches should set up cones, pylons, or other obstacles in a zigzag pattern across the ice.
• Players begin by taking turns stickhandling the puck through the obstacles as quickly as they can without losing control.
• To make the exercise more competitive, coaches should time each player and see who can complete the course the fastest.

Why It’s Fun: Navigating through obstacles feels like a game, but it’s a valuable skill for players on the ice. Adding a timed element increases the excitement and challenges players to try and beat their best time or their teammates’ times.

Puck Handling Relay

Objective: The goal of this activity is to improve each player’s stickhandling under pressure while promoting teamwork.

How it Works:

• Coaches should first divide the team into two groups.
• Set up a line of cones for each team.
• Players take turns stickhandling the puck through the cones. After which, they turn around, and return to the start, passing the puck to the next teammate.
• The first team to complete the relay wins the exercise.

Why It’s Fun: Adding the relay format to a basic stickhandling drill will encourage teamwork and add an element of competition, making it both fun and challenging.

Keep Away

Objective: Normally, playing keep away with your friends is considered mean. In this drill, however, the purpose is to protect the puck from your teammates. Puck protection skills are a necessary skill and it’s important for kids to practice their ability to keep the puck away from opponents.

How it Works:

• Coaches divide the players into small groups of 3-4.
• Each group has one puck, and the objective is for one player to maintain control of the puck while the others try to steal it.
• Players continue trying to steal the puck then try to keep it away from the others.

Why It’s Fun: This drill simulates real-game situations where puck protection is key. Kids love the challenge of keeping the puck away from their peers.

Passing Drills

Passing is one of the most essential skills to master in hockey. Unlike stick control and skating, passing requires teamwork and necessitates communication. Passing drills are a fun way to help young players develop the ability to move the puck quickly and accurately to one another.

Passing Accuracy Challenge

Objective: In passing, accuracy and control is key; this drill improves both.

How it Works:

• Prior to the drill, coaches should set up small targets (like cones or spare pucks) around the ice.
• Players begin by taking turns passing the puck and trying to knock down or hit the targets.
• For added competition, coaches should keep score and see who can hit the most targets. The player who hits the most accurate targets wins.

Why It’s Fun: Accuracy is the name of the game here, of course, but making the drill competitive and fun helps keep players engaged and invested in the activity.

3-on-3 Keep Away

Objective: This drill is keep away on steroids. Exercises like these promote teamwork and the ability to make quick, accurate passes.

How it Works:

• First, coaches divide the players into two teams of three.
• The objective of the exercise is to maintain puck possession by making quick, accurate passes to teammates while the other team tries to steal the puck.
• If the opposing team steals the puck, the roles are then reversed.

Why It’s Fun: The fast-paced nature of the grill keeps young players engaged and improves their teamwork, passing, and communication skills.

Shooting Drills

The objective of hockey is to get the puck into the opponent’s net. This means that shooting is arguably the most exciting and important skill for young hockey players to master. Fun shooting drills give children the chance to score goals while improving their overall technique and working on their accuracy.

Rapid Fire Shooting

Objective: This important drill helps young athletes to improve their shooting accuracy and quickness.

How it Works:

• Coaches start by lining up pucks around the crease area.
• Players are brought onto the ice and take turns shooting as many pucks as they can in a set amount of time (e.g., 30 seconds).
• The goal of the exercise is to have players shoot as quickly as possible while maintaining accuracy.

Why It’s Fun: Players love the challenge of rapid-fire shooting, and the time limit adds excitement to the drill.

Accuracy Shooting Contest

Objective: To further their accuracy training, young hockey players should try to develop their shooting accuracy, specifically. This next drill has players hitting specific targets in the net.

How it Works:

• Coaches should set up targets in the four corners of the net (or use empty water bottles on top of the net).
• Players participate by taking turns shooting and trying to hit the targets.
• Add a competitive element by keeping track of how many targets each player hits. The player who hits the most targets wins.

Why It’s Fun: Young players will enjoy the satisfaction of hitting targets and scoring goals. The added competition element makes this exercise that much more exciting.

Teamwork Drills

In addition to individual skills, coaches should encourage young hockey players to learn how to work together as a team. These next few drills are fun and they emphasize teamwork by building communication, trust, and collaboration on the ice.

2-on-2 Mini Games

Objective: Drills like these are meant to develop teamwork and decision-making for players by having them work in small groups.

How it Works:

• Coaches start by setting up a small area of the ice for a 2-on-2 game.
• Players are then tasked with working together to pass the puck, create scoring opportunities, and defend.
• The smaller play area encourages quick decisions and open communication, which fosters good teamwork.

Why It’s Fun: Mini games like these simulate real-game scenarios in a fun, fast-paced environment. There is also an added bonus here as small teams encourage collaboration between players, which they can take into real games next time around.

Cross-Ice Scrimmage

Objective: This drill is basically like a peewee war game. And like real war games, this exercise promotes teamwork, puck movement, and game-like decision-making.

How it Works:

• The rink is divided into two or three smaller sections using cones or markers.
• Players play a scrimmage game in each section with 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 teams.
• As with the earlier drill, the smaller space encourages quick passing, puck movement, and teamwork.

Why It’s Fun: Cross-ice scrimmages are a great way to simulate game situations that feel realistic, while keeping all players involved in the action. Players are encouraged to think quickly and work as a team. It’s challenging and but fun, which is what all the best drills should be!

Cultured Athlete Says…

Developing hockey skills shouldn’t be grueling, especially when it comes to kids. These drills should be engaging and fun, challenging, and mildly competitive. Whether it’s skating, stickhandling, passing, shooting, or teamwork, fun drills allow young players to improve their skills while enjoying themselves; and isn’t that the whole idea?