Banbury Bulldogs

Skater Hockey Club

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Team Play

A few notes on the philosophy of team play. Team play is about trust. If you are a forward, you must trust your defenders to defend. If the ball (or puck) goes into the defensive zone, they will chase it and prevent the opposition from scoring. What is the importance of this? Well, if you trust your defenders you will allow them space to do their job, not go piling in and get in their way. Better still, you will take up an open position, so that when they have won the ball, they have someone to pass it to who is in an attacking position. If all the forwards are in the defensive end and the ball is hit long up the rink, the opposition defenders will collect possession and you will be defending again in no time.

On the other hand, the defence must trust the forwards to help them out if they do get into trouble. If the opposition are attacking in numbers, forwards must get back to help out but remember - as soon as your team regains possession, forwards must get forward into space and get ready to receive a pass.

How do you build trust? The main way is to play together as a line as often as possible. Make sure you know your own role in the team and understand what is expected of the other team members.

Clearing the line

Getting the ball/puck out of defence and into the opponents' half quickly is a great way to set up scoring opportunities. If you are going to be effective, your clearance must find a member of your team.

This is where team work is important. If you are defending and the forward is coming in fast you don't have much time to look for the pass. You need your winger to be heading for the boards so you can pass along them.

Two things to remember here, then - only one each, though, so don't panic!

bulletDefender - pass along the boards, not in front of the goal
bulletWinger - get to the boards ready for the clearance

Think Space

Both passers and receivers need to think about the space on the rink. In a game it it very easy to focus on the players around you and ignore the open spaces in between people but if you look for the gaps and pass through them you can often get a team-mate skating on to the ball/puck and bypassing the defense.

If you are looking to receive the ball, call clearly and indicate the place to which you want the pass made, either by pointing or just giving verbal directions

Passing to space

In the diagram above, player C could pass to B, but B is covered by the defender. There is space in front of A into which C threads the ball/puck for A to skate on to and this sets up a good attack.

On the subject of passing, as a rule you should pass in front of your target player so they can keep up their momentum. This will allow you to attack fast. Having to slow, stop or turn to collect a pass costs time and effort and allows the defense to re-group.

There is one situation when you should not worry about passing to a team mate. That is when you are short-handed and need to run the clock down to get your player back from the sin bin. Under those circumstances, you should hammer the ball/puck all the way to the far end of the rink, preferably into the corners, so the team with the power-play have to waste time retrieving it before they can mount another attack.