Monday, January 18, 2016

The Educational Value of a Scrimmage

Practicing is important for any youth hockey player, and most of them do it pretty regularly. However, there are only so many practices a child can attend before he starts to get bored and unfocused. That’s why it’s strongly encouraged to mix practices up with the occasional scrimmage. A scrimmage game is fun, intense, and surprisingly, can teach kids quite a few things!

To begin with, scrimmages are very similar to real games, and thus, they teach kids to really get comfortable and secure on the ice. They also help improve both speed and agility, important skills for young hockey players to have, as well as fast decision making. And, of course, they provide invaluable real-situation experience, which no player can get enough of.

Coaches are encouraged to replace a couple of weekly practices with scrimmages or to at least incorporate the scrimmage concept into some of their practices, which they can do by just tossing a puck out on the ice and letting the players go!

Players will be able to get all the fun, experience, and learning value of a real game but without any pressure weighing them down and with lots more actual playing-with-the-puck time. Coaches usually find that even their shyest players come out of their shells during scrimmages and that everyone benefits, so go ahead; treat your players to the highly educational experience of a scrimmage!

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