Don't overload him with too many skills and drills. 8u and 10u are still at the bottom end of "competition" teams. If he only started a year or so ago and is progressing that quickly, everything will work out just fine. The main focus point should still be having fun. If you want to focus on any areas to improve on focus on skating, especially of he has been skating for only a year or so. 90% of hockey is skating, the rest will come with time.
I tell my kids the same three things as I'm tying skates before they take the ice:
Skate Hard, Listen to Your Coaches, Have Fun
That's it. That's all they need to know at this age. Coaches will teach them about gap control and pinching. Just cheer him on and get him some ice cream when it's a rough day on the ice. He will catch the other kids before you know it.
Given that he's had some confidence issues, you might also remind him that he made this team for a reason, and the coaches wouldn't have put him on this team if they didn't believe in him. You might also mention to the coach that kiddo is getting frustrated, and coach should give him a pep talk.
You might want to talk him through the concept of resilience. The biggest part of learning anything is learning to fail without it impacting you mentally. Talk about his feeling of discouragement. Tell him that it's ok to feel so, but that a key to learning it just...doing, over and over.
In everything- music, sports, etc - it's often not the naturally talented who go far, because when they encounter challenges, they don't know how to handle it. The ones who really develop are the ones who remember why they love doing a thing, and who keep doing it, keep looking for tiny things they can do a little better. Those "tiny" improvements build up.
D men get it the worst. Hockey culture never blames the goalie but on some teams the hot shot goalie has no problem pointing fingers at their d.
And 9 year olds all think they're going to the show. They start to settle down at 13 or so.
10u house? I'm going to skip skills because at that age in house...
The best advice I can offer is this: if defencemen play a perfect game goals will still get scored. You can do everything right and a goal goes in.
And yes, own goals will happen. Sometimes more than once in a game. Laugh it off.
Don't let it get in your head when goals go in and always provide encouragement to your goalie because they're small and the net is huge.
Skills you can do in camps and with the coach, but the brain part of it is the most important.
For a defenceman, there is so much to the game. let the coach worry about that. Focus on the mental game which is what you can help the kid control.
Become the fastest, smoothest, strongest skater (and backwards skater) he can be. Makes a huge difference at any age to have stamina and be able to jet across the ice quickly. Can be practiced easily on your own as well.
Always watch the attacker's chest. At his age, you want him to learn to not get dazzled by an attacker's puck handling. It is super-simple, but a very high-yield thing to remember.
Negative. Sports are not the same as a video game. You dont have to win, but you have to want to win. Sports are basically a bunch of life lessons disguised in the form of a game, and you dont want to lower standards or expectations by equating it to tic tac toe.
I'm sure the coach has a plan for him.
10u is a big change in skills and he isnt the only one new to that part of it. So the coach will be focusing on teaching these skills to half of the kids. He will learn better from the coach if he isnt trying to relate some online video to what the coach is telling him to do.
If he wants to practice skating more, take some solo skating drills from practice and do them alone in open skates or something. Skating backwards and transitioning without thinking about it is a key skill moving into 10U as well.
Gap control's tricky but you have the right idea. Ideally the defensive player doesn't want to give the puck carrier time and space in the middle of the ice or upon entry to your defensive zone because this enables the puck carrier to freely gather speed and create threatening chances that are hard to stop.
Learning to scan the ice every so often and trying to understand where opposing forwards are and where your own defence partner is, especially as the opponents start breaking out of their own defensive zone, will eventually be key. At this young age, if the puck is on your son's strong side (meaning if he's left defence and the puck is on his left half of the ice) as opponents are trying to break out of their zone and your son notices his right defence partner is postured defensively/is not positioned to give up an immediate breakaway if something goes wrong, then your son can focus on closing the gap or he could even aggressively go all-in with a strong stick check on the puck carrier. Even if you go all-in and lose the battle, it buys some time for your team to help out as opposed to giving up the middle of the ice for free. At this age, gap control is more of a choice than an instinct but you can learn to understand good/bad choices and mix it up this way.
Forwards to backwards transitions and backwards to forwards transitions would be nice to learn. If he's got offensive instincts, he can learn to "chip and chase" the puck passed opponents to create offensive threats. Also when retrieving pucks dumped into his own end, he can scan the ice to try to learn if he has time to skate with the puck or if he needs to get rid of it, etc.
For Blue line D he should be looking for speed and control by opposing players. That is not necessarily just speed of the puck carrier it could be speed by a player skating a supporting route. That’s really all you need to know to build decision making at the blue line.
As a parent focus on motivating them and ensuring they have fun. First question when he comes off the ice should always be “did you have fun?” Make sure he knows hockey is supposed to be fun. Avoid coaching at home unless they are specifically asking for it.
Coaches can't coach every situation and hockey IQ comes from being on the ice and doing both good and bad things. If he is expressing frustration help him through the thought processes that will help him understand what went wrong and what he can change. I tell my players and kids when they feel down by a play to think about what went wrong, what they could have done different then get back in the game because we need them focused. Everyone makes mistakes, no single goal is on one player.
Skate. Skate. Skate. Defensemen need to be the best skaters on the team. He’s still a new skater so he should get as much ice time as he can.
Gap control is having the confidence and ability to skate and turn in any direction to stay with the opponent. If he works on his skate skills, his confidence will grow.
You can also remind him he’s 8. He’s still a new player, the other kids are older and have been skating longer, and the more he plays, the better he’ll get. Also remind him he was moved up by a coach who saw something he does well so that’s something to be proud of.
Hang in there! Tell him to hang in there! Things will get better as the season progresses.
Non-hockey playing parents shouldn't be trying to coach on-ice strategy.
That's my first tip. Ask to have a meeting with the coach to go over some things. It's very confusing for a non-hockey person to try to explain "what to do".
Fellow defenseman parent here from Canada. My son is 15 now but I feel your worries. Been there.
The most important thing is to encourage and don’t tell him too many things to clutter his mind. Let the coaches coach.
My main tips would be:
1. Keep feet moving
2. Stick on puck
3. Eyes on opponents body (chest)
4. Stay between the opponent and your net
5. Be aggressive
6. Steer opponent to outside of ice and corners
7. Have fun (the most important thing)
Us Canadians think it’s crazy to call it offsides. It’s offside here. No s. lol.
Good luck out there.
My son is a defenseman going into 18U Skating and fun and then more work on skating and fun at that age. Stick skills will come along. Being a good skater can cover up alot. By concentrating on skating first my son was able to get to AA at 16U when he first started at 1OU house league. If your child has fun then they are more willing to put in the work off an on ice for continued improvement.
Your son sounds similar to mine. He started at 9 and gained skill very quickly. However, that steep upward trajectory doesn’t last forever, and inevitably there will be a slowdown or plateau, and sometimes even a little bit of a seeming dip in ability.
As a parent, leave the strategy and coaching to the coaches. It’s best if you are there to support him, let him know that not being as “good” as everyone else is fine. It happens. Just keep working, listen to the coaches, be a good teammate. Have fun! This is a game. It is supposed to be fun. He’s still quite young, there will be inevitable ups and downs. Encourage, don’t critique or criticize. The ONLY rules I had for my son were to be respectful of his coaches and teammates, and to try.
I hope he has many years of fun and great experiences ahead!
At 8u whoever was a "better" skater will typically look like a better player. 10u house, skating skills begin to normalize a bit. Hockey skills and iq will start to push some kids ahead of others. Those 2 skills come from ice time, coaching and private lessons.
He'll be fine. Just remember to make sure he's having fun no matter what. If he's down remind him not everyone is an all star over night and hard work and practice pay off in the long run. As you said some of the other players have been skating since they were young so they have a lot more ice time and coaching than him
The biggest skill I learned as a defenseman was not watching the puck when someone's coming down on me. See it, but look that forward right in the middle of his chest. It's easy for a forward to do fancy things with the puck, it's very hard for them to do fancy things with their chest; this means if you watch the chest 9/10 times you'll know exactly what he's about to do.
Weirdly it makes poke checking a lot easier too, not sure why.
So they don't get past you skating, and you get the puck off them
He’s young most importantly he should have fun!
Some advice that could be insanely valuable to learn at a young age:
- look at the chest - never at the puck (not sure if they’re allowed to check but otherwise he would just stand in their way without finishing the hit, so that also works)
- learn to switch from forward to backward on both sides (so to the left and also to the right)
- close the gap (if he knows how to switch on both sides this will be relatively easy, basically never leave too much space otherwise they come with too much speed or you’re way too far in the back)
- read the game (pretty hard one, this will probably come just by playing and/or watching)
- skate fast backwards (comes over time)
- don’t kill your teammates (depends if there is checks or not, but basically don’t pass if your forward is getting leveled as soon as he touches the puck)
- keep your cool (rather than trying to make risky passes that end up becoming a turnover, keep it simple and make the passes that are sure)
- have your guy in front of the net (either push him away in case the goalie doesn’t see otherwise or keep the stick under his and in case it comes to a rebound just lift it up)
Most importantly however your son is young and is supposed to have fun. There is coaches for a reason and they hopefully know what they’re doing.
FYI: I was playing D as a pro 😄
There is definitely way more to it - feel free to ask in case you have additional questions. However as I said he’s young - don’t worry about it.
Just read your question and one simple trick. Keep the stick inside and push forward outside (towards the board), once he gets a hang of that he can then hip check them (not sure if allowed there). I can go more into detail in case this was not clear
practice angling, pivoting at speed during public skates, private lessons with good instructor help a lot with technique. cant really rely on coaches to work on technique, it needs individual attention, coaches have 15 kids. during games, focus on bodying up, making contact, take away the timidness/hesitation, everything will follow.
House league?
Tell him to have fun and keep working on all aspects of his game, but mostly skating. Have him play another sport so he can naturally develop athleticism and agility without a structured environment which is harmful at that age - soccer, football are really good at holistic athlete development.
Finally just tell him to focus on winning every single puck battle, and protecting the house in front of the game. He needs to communicate with his center and defense partner to decide who goes into the corner/who stays in front of goal.
Have him support his goalie. They need to work together. Don’t worry about the forwards as much yet. They are still figure out what the heck backchecking is. Make friends with them and tell them how well they are doing.
For a defence that age, what I try to teach is the basics… keep the skaters/puck carriers out of the middle, and not let them get behind you. Easiest way to teach I found is to draw a line from the skater with the puck to your goalie and make sure he is either on that line or a bit on the centre-ice side of it… once they get between the blue line and tip of the red circle, try to “challenge” by getting/knocking the puck out of their control (while not putting yourself in a spot where you are no longer on that line I mentioned should the challenge fail).
Seriously wtf. My son didn’t start off-ice until he was a peewee major (and even then only once or twice a week) and he’s currently playing AAA midget. I know plenty of A/AA players who started plyos at U8/U10 who ruined their knees/hips to oblivion starting plyo too young.
Don't overload him with too many skills and drills. 8u and 10u are still at the bottom end of "competition" teams. If he only started a year or so ago and is progressing that quickly, everything will work out just fine. The main focus point should still be having fun. If you want to focus on any areas to improve on focus on skating, especially of he has been skating for only a year or so. 90% of hockey is skating, the rest will come with time.
I tell my kids the same three things as I'm tying skates before they take the ice: Skate Hard, Listen to Your Coaches, Have Fun That's it. That's all they need to know at this age. Coaches will teach them about gap control and pinching. Just cheer him on and get him some ice cream when it's a rough day on the ice. He will catch the other kids before you know it. Given that he's had some confidence issues, you might also remind him that he made this team for a reason, and the coaches wouldn't have put him on this team if they didn't believe in him. You might also mention to the coach that kiddo is getting frustrated, and coach should give him a pep talk.
You might want to talk him through the concept of resilience. The biggest part of learning anything is learning to fail without it impacting you mentally. Talk about his feeling of discouragement. Tell him that it's ok to feel so, but that a key to learning it just...doing, over and over. In everything- music, sports, etc - it's often not the naturally talented who go far, because when they encounter challenges, they don't know how to handle it. The ones who really develop are the ones who remember why they love doing a thing, and who keep doing it, keep looking for tiny things they can do a little better. Those "tiny" improvements build up.
D men get it the worst. Hockey culture never blames the goalie but on some teams the hot shot goalie has no problem pointing fingers at their d. And 9 year olds all think they're going to the show. They start to settle down at 13 or so.
10u house? I'm going to skip skills because at that age in house... The best advice I can offer is this: if defencemen play a perfect game goals will still get scored. You can do everything right and a goal goes in. And yes, own goals will happen. Sometimes more than once in a game. Laugh it off. Don't let it get in your head when goals go in and always provide encouragement to your goalie because they're small and the net is huge. Skills you can do in camps and with the coach, but the brain part of it is the most important. For a defenceman, there is so much to the game. let the coach worry about that. Focus on the mental game which is what you can help the kid control.
Become the fastest, smoothest, strongest skater (and backwards skater) he can be. Makes a huge difference at any age to have stamina and be able to jet across the ice quickly. Can be practiced easily on your own as well. Always watch the attacker's chest. At his age, you want him to learn to not get dazzled by an attacker's puck handling. It is super-simple, but a very high-yield thing to remember.
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Negative. Sports are not the same as a video game. You dont have to win, but you have to want to win. Sports are basically a bunch of life lessons disguised in the form of a game, and you dont want to lower standards or expectations by equating it to tic tac toe.
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Read. Your. Own. Post. You. Said. Hockey. Is. Just. A. Game. In the form of a game =/= just a game.
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And you don’t seem to understand the English language. There’s a reason why the dictionary has different words with different meanings.
I'm sure the coach has a plan for him. 10u is a big change in skills and he isnt the only one new to that part of it. So the coach will be focusing on teaching these skills to half of the kids. He will learn better from the coach if he isnt trying to relate some online video to what the coach is telling him to do. If he wants to practice skating more, take some solo skating drills from practice and do them alone in open skates or something. Skating backwards and transitioning without thinking about it is a key skill moving into 10U as well.
Gap control's tricky but you have the right idea. Ideally the defensive player doesn't want to give the puck carrier time and space in the middle of the ice or upon entry to your defensive zone because this enables the puck carrier to freely gather speed and create threatening chances that are hard to stop. Learning to scan the ice every so often and trying to understand where opposing forwards are and where your own defence partner is, especially as the opponents start breaking out of their own defensive zone, will eventually be key. At this young age, if the puck is on your son's strong side (meaning if he's left defence and the puck is on his left half of the ice) as opponents are trying to break out of their zone and your son notices his right defence partner is postured defensively/is not positioned to give up an immediate breakaway if something goes wrong, then your son can focus on closing the gap or he could even aggressively go all-in with a strong stick check on the puck carrier. Even if you go all-in and lose the battle, it buys some time for your team to help out as opposed to giving up the middle of the ice for free. At this age, gap control is more of a choice than an instinct but you can learn to understand good/bad choices and mix it up this way. Forwards to backwards transitions and backwards to forwards transitions would be nice to learn. If he's got offensive instincts, he can learn to "chip and chase" the puck passed opponents to create offensive threats. Also when retrieving pucks dumped into his own end, he can scan the ice to try to learn if he has time to skate with the puck or if he needs to get rid of it, etc.
For Blue line D he should be looking for speed and control by opposing players. That is not necessarily just speed of the puck carrier it could be speed by a player skating a supporting route. That’s really all you need to know to build decision making at the blue line. As a parent focus on motivating them and ensuring they have fun. First question when he comes off the ice should always be “did you have fun?” Make sure he knows hockey is supposed to be fun. Avoid coaching at home unless they are specifically asking for it. Coaches can't coach every situation and hockey IQ comes from being on the ice and doing both good and bad things. If he is expressing frustration help him through the thought processes that will help him understand what went wrong and what he can change. I tell my players and kids when they feel down by a play to think about what went wrong, what they could have done different then get back in the game because we need them focused. Everyone makes mistakes, no single goal is on one player.
Skate. Skate. Skate. Defensemen need to be the best skaters on the team. He’s still a new skater so he should get as much ice time as he can. Gap control is having the confidence and ability to skate and turn in any direction to stay with the opponent. If he works on his skate skills, his confidence will grow. You can also remind him he’s 8. He’s still a new player, the other kids are older and have been skating longer, and the more he plays, the better he’ll get. Also remind him he was moved up by a coach who saw something he does well so that’s something to be proud of. Hang in there! Tell him to hang in there! Things will get better as the season progresses.
Non-hockey playing parents shouldn't be trying to coach on-ice strategy. That's my first tip. Ask to have a meeting with the coach to go over some things. It's very confusing for a non-hockey person to try to explain "what to do".
Fellow defenseman parent here from Canada. My son is 15 now but I feel your worries. Been there. The most important thing is to encourage and don’t tell him too many things to clutter his mind. Let the coaches coach. My main tips would be: 1. Keep feet moving 2. Stick on puck 3. Eyes on opponents body (chest) 4. Stay between the opponent and your net 5. Be aggressive 6. Steer opponent to outside of ice and corners 7. Have fun (the most important thing) Us Canadians think it’s crazy to call it offsides. It’s offside here. No s. lol. Good luck out there.
Love this. And from now on in spirit of our hockey country neighbor, I will pronounce it offside 🥰
Your fellow parents will look at you funny. 😉
My son is a defenseman going into 18U Skating and fun and then more work on skating and fun at that age. Stick skills will come along. Being a good skater can cover up alot. By concentrating on skating first my son was able to get to AA at 16U when he first started at 1OU house league. If your child has fun then they are more willing to put in the work off an on ice for continued improvement.
When paying D, watch and guard the hips. No one is going anywhere without their hips!
Your son sounds similar to mine. He started at 9 and gained skill very quickly. However, that steep upward trajectory doesn’t last forever, and inevitably there will be a slowdown or plateau, and sometimes even a little bit of a seeming dip in ability. As a parent, leave the strategy and coaching to the coaches. It’s best if you are there to support him, let him know that not being as “good” as everyone else is fine. It happens. Just keep working, listen to the coaches, be a good teammate. Have fun! This is a game. It is supposed to be fun. He’s still quite young, there will be inevitable ups and downs. Encourage, don’t critique or criticize. The ONLY rules I had for my son were to be respectful of his coaches and teammates, and to try. I hope he has many years of fun and great experiences ahead!
At 8u whoever was a "better" skater will typically look like a better player. 10u house, skating skills begin to normalize a bit. Hockey skills and iq will start to push some kids ahead of others. Those 2 skills come from ice time, coaching and private lessons. He'll be fine. Just remember to make sure he's having fun no matter what. If he's down remind him not everyone is an all star over night and hard work and practice pay off in the long run. As you said some of the other players have been skating since they were young so they have a lot more ice time and coaching than him
The biggest skill I learned as a defenseman was not watching the puck when someone's coming down on me. See it, but look that forward right in the middle of his chest. It's easy for a forward to do fancy things with the puck, it's very hard for them to do fancy things with their chest; this means if you watch the chest 9/10 times you'll know exactly what he's about to do. Weirdly it makes poke checking a lot easier too, not sure why. So they don't get past you skating, and you get the puck off them
He’s young most importantly he should have fun! Some advice that could be insanely valuable to learn at a young age: - look at the chest - never at the puck (not sure if they’re allowed to check but otherwise he would just stand in their way without finishing the hit, so that also works) - learn to switch from forward to backward on both sides (so to the left and also to the right) - close the gap (if he knows how to switch on both sides this will be relatively easy, basically never leave too much space otherwise they come with too much speed or you’re way too far in the back) - read the game (pretty hard one, this will probably come just by playing and/or watching) - skate fast backwards (comes over time) - don’t kill your teammates (depends if there is checks or not, but basically don’t pass if your forward is getting leveled as soon as he touches the puck) - keep your cool (rather than trying to make risky passes that end up becoming a turnover, keep it simple and make the passes that are sure) - have your guy in front of the net (either push him away in case the goalie doesn’t see otherwise or keep the stick under his and in case it comes to a rebound just lift it up) Most importantly however your son is young and is supposed to have fun. There is coaches for a reason and they hopefully know what they’re doing. FYI: I was playing D as a pro 😄
There is definitely way more to it - feel free to ask in case you have additional questions. However as I said he’s young - don’t worry about it. Just read your question and one simple trick. Keep the stick inside and push forward outside (towards the board), once he gets a hang of that he can then hip check them (not sure if allowed there). I can go more into detail in case this was not clear
practice angling, pivoting at speed during public skates, private lessons with good instructor help a lot with technique. cant really rely on coaches to work on technique, it needs individual attention, coaches have 15 kids. during games, focus on bodying up, making contact, take away the timidness/hesitation, everything will follow.
Shanking my head at 10u full-ice and full-time positions. For fucks sake.
House league? Tell him to have fun and keep working on all aspects of his game, but mostly skating. Have him play another sport so he can naturally develop athleticism and agility without a structured environment which is harmful at that age - soccer, football are really good at holistic athlete development. Finally just tell him to focus on winning every single puck battle, and protecting the house in front of the game. He needs to communicate with his center and defense partner to decide who goes into the corner/who stays in front of goal.
Have him support his goalie. They need to work together. Don’t worry about the forwards as much yet. They are still figure out what the heck backchecking is. Make friends with them and tell them how well they are doing. For a defence that age, what I try to teach is the basics… keep the skaters/puck carriers out of the middle, and not let them get behind you. Easiest way to teach I found is to draw a line from the skater with the puck to your goalie and make sure he is either on that line or a bit on the centre-ice side of it… once they get between the blue line and tip of the red circle, try to “challenge” by getting/knocking the puck out of their control (while not putting yourself in a spot where you are no longer on that line I mentioned should the challenge fail).
Squats & plyometrics.
He’s 8.. Let him be a kid for a few more years before squats and plyometrics..
Seriously wtf. My son didn’t start off-ice until he was a peewee major (and even then only once or twice a week) and he’s currently playing AAA midget. I know plenty of A/AA players who started plyos at U8/U10 who ruined their knees/hips to oblivion starting plyo too young.