Hockey Session (Under 8s): U8/9/10 Session #1

Intros (5 mins)

Ask if there are any players who are new to the sport. If there are any players who haven't played before, find out what they have played and see if you can relate it to field hockey!

Encourage everyone to learn everyone else's names. 

Intro Stick Grip & Dribbling (10 mins)

Even if everyone on your team has played before, it's a good idea to review how to hold a stick and 2 basic rules: no feet, flat side only.

Holding a stick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snpRRXfhgDw, left hand on top with your pinky at the very top and your knuckles facing outwards (as if you were going to fist bump someone), right hand at the middle where the grip ends 

Go position: strong wrist, knees bent, toe of the stick on the ground, flat side facing forward, eyes up

Stop position: turn the stick over with your left hand and put the flat side in front of the ball

If your team is all new to hockey, you can practice straight dribbling and stopping the ball, and could play red light green light. 

If not, move on to intro dribbling with Hot Potato:

Put out as many cones as kids. At cone and with ball, kids practice pulling ball side to side (cue: draw a rainbow over/around the ball so that the toe is up then the toe is down). 

Once practiced, now tell kids the ball is a potato and we have to run fast to cook it, but sometimes it gets too hot and you have to "toss" it from side to side to cool it down. Have kids dribble around the circle. Then coach yells "Hot Potato!" Kids run to the nearest cone and flip their potato (dribble ball) 10 times. Once they have dribbled x 10, they start jogging around again. You can extend dribbling by yelling "they're still too hot keep going" or " these are huge potatoes, make your pulls extra wide to flip them".

Coaching Points: 

- Kids may use their right hand to flip the stick. We really need to guide them to turn the stick with their left hand and keep their right hand loose. Izzy & I will be around to help with this.

- When they're dribbling in a circle, encourage them to keep the ball on their stick at all times but push it out in front, so that they can get their eyes up

Tic Tac Toe (20 mins)

Choose between either Tic-tac-toe or Rob the Nest to end the session

Each team needs different coloured balls (4 or 5)

Each team sends one player with a ball out to the grid. They place the ball in the grid then run back to their team. The next teammate does the same. The other team is doing the same at the same time with their own balls. The teams are trying to get 3 of their balls in a row.

If there is a "stalemate" where no one wins, the game continues with the next player running out without a ball and taking a ball from the grid back to their line. The next player in line can then dribble out and place a ball in another location.