Ice Hockey – How to train a defender

We have showed the development of a centre, winger and a keeper in the previous zones and now, in the last article of the series we will see how to train a defender.
The player in the spotlight today is Kyle Blackley, a strong and absolutely fast defender, one of the best U21 serving the English Team at the moment, trained by nffc1985, manager of Top English Team, Deez Cold Nutz.
How to train your (DEFENDER)
Coming from Nottingham, Kyle arrived at Deez Cold Nutz looking extremely promising with 22 pucks, one of the highest amounts I have ever seen at the age of 15. The manager is an expert at developing youngsters and has done a pretty good job with him as you can see in the picture.

As Kyle Blackley arrived in the middle of season 40, the manager had to rush his training a bit, therefore he put him to YCC (Youth Conditioning Camp) so he could catch up with what he had missed during his first season. He trained Power and Checking that week and gained a puck each and a couple of days later he went to Training Camp, where he gained 3 pucks and ended the season with 3 more pucks in Checking, 2 in Power which was pretty good.
Kyle Blackley had attended the same TC in the second season and after it, he stayed at Power department until the end of this term when he maxed in this attribute. Having 9 in Power at the age of 17 was superb and with good amount of pucks in Checking and Stamina, Craig decided to focus on these attributes in the last season as youth and sent him to same TC for the third time in a roll.
Maximizing in Checking early in season 42, Kyle Blackley took advantage of the training Camp to gain 4 pucks in Stamina before becoming professional. Unfortunately for the manager, he also maxed in Shooting after only 3 weeks training this skill but still, he looked as a star defender and very suitable for the National Team even premature.
The Training Camps chosen for him in his first seasons at Deez Cold Nutz:
– Centre Package No. 8 (Checking, Power, Stamina)
– Centre Package No. 8 (Checking, Power, Stamina)
– Centre Package No. 8 (Checking, Power, Stamina)
The pictures below show his development season by season as a youth player at Cold Nutz.

Craig promoted Kyle to the professional team in season 43 and made him train Skating and Quickness in this period. He gained ‘only’ 4 pucks but looked more confident on the skates and much, much faster and most importantly, didn’t max.
Same idea, same plan for season 44 and he gained 5 pucks in Skating and Quickness together. Although he maxed in these skills, the amount of pucks he has is great for a defender and he needs now the tertiary attributes to be developed only and Craig put him to train Puck Control until he maxes but won’t be sent to TC anymore.
The Training Camp chosen for him in his professional career:
– Wild Card Package No. 2 (Stamina, Quickness, Skating)
He’s one of the U21 English Team stars, playing in the first line and we can see why, below.

So this is the end of the ‘How to train your youth’ series and as you can see, it’s not so hard to train a great player, you just need money for TC, good coaches, take hockey seriously and of course, a bit of luck so they don’t max early lol.
See you next time!
By agapitod

Ice Hockey – How to train a winger

This is the second article about youths’ development and now we show a winger, perfect for small countries’ Top League or low division in big countries like Sweden, Poland, Brazil…
I know it might sound pretentious when I say “how to train your youth” because firstly, this is not a recipe and may not work as well as has worked with my players. Also, I’m not the best manager in the game and as a matter of fact, I’m very far from being this, but I know a bit of how to do it properly. You can see it as ONE of several ways to train a youth hockey player.
How to train a youth (WINGER)
I’ve picked Breffni McCready because he’s the one with good amount of pucks in the important skills for the position.
Seven seasons ago, the small boy from Rathmore came to our academy to train hockey. 15 years old and still with all his teeth in his mouth, he was one of the most ‘hard workers’ at the training ground and that made him a lot stronger and skillful nowadays. The picture itself can prove I’m right:

Different from other managers, I don’t train only power to max, instead, I make turns into important skills. Ironically, when I first saw McCready, I thought he could be a defender so the first skill chosen was checking. I didn’t start with power because all the spots were filled by ‘better’ players. Well to sum up, he’d got 7 pucks in his first season which is very good given the fact that at that time, players were still under training 1.0 and so, getting pucks was slower than nowadays.
The second season, I’d focused on secondary attributes so he could get even on his skills, not forgetting though Power and Shooting his new favourite skill to be developed.
In the last season as youth, I had to rush his primary attributes so I could decide whether he’d be sacked, sold or kept in the squad. Managerzone was in transition process to Training 2.0 so he had the ITC (Intense Training Camp) where he stayed for a week. His feedback was perfect as 7 pucks were gained again and no maxes other than the already known checking. Great Stuff!
The training Camps I had chosen for him were:
– Forward Package No.3 (Power, Shooting, Checking)
– Forward Package No.4 (Passing, Shooting, Skating)
– ITC (Power, Shooting, Skating)
– Forward Package No.3 (Power, Shooting, Checking)
The pictures show you his progress and how he looked after his season as amateur at Rathmore Lime Tree.

It’s common sense that a player when becomes professional, slows down his training results and starts getting less pucks per season but it didn’t really happen with McCready in his first season amongst seniors. He got 7 pucks, two of which were in Power and his last puck in Shooting.
After that season, his trainings started to go slower and he showed no good partial in quickness. Only four pucks were gained in S41 plus early max in Skating with six pucks. At this stage he still looked like a great promise, even with early maxes in checking and skating.
In the last season helping the U21 National Team and doing a fair job in the first line, McCready got four more pucks, which was ok but less than his teammates from the same season. It was when I realized he couldn’t become a top, top player because again he got an early max, this time in quickness.
Well in my opinion, a top player has to have at least 7 pucks in Stamina, Quickness and Skating and he had maxed with only 6 in Skating and Quickness. So now instead of being a top player, he turned into a good player for small countries with few managers like Ireland or maybe for lower divisions in bigger nations.
The training Camps I had chosen for him were:
– General Package No.1 (Power, Stamina, Skating)
– General Package No.1 (Power, Stamina, Skating)
– Forward Package No.13 (Shooting, Quickness, Play Intelligence)
After three more seasons, this is how he current looks like.

This season is the last one that he will be sent to TC and thanks to the new ‘Training Camp Exchange’ feature I was able to choose whatever package I want for him. I was in doubt whether to choose a package with stamina and play intelligence or stamina and puck control so I chose the “Defender Package No. 13” (Checking, Stamina, Puck Control) mostly because he has less pucks in puck control than in intelligence. If I’m lucky, he’ll get a couple of pucks in puck control, a puck in stamina and keep training this attribute.
By agapitod

Ice Hockey – How to train a centre

This is the first of four articles about trainings. We have on TZs few articles about training but quite superficial as they tell how you are supposed to do it but in theory only. We are showing real players, trained by real managers and so, they are not perfect but good enough to be shown here. Of course, there are thousands different ways to train a youth so you can see this as ONE way to develop your young lad.

How to train a youth (CENTRE)
Pierre Froggatt joined my club as a youth player on 15/01/2013. At that time he looked like the picture below and in all fairness he had a good starting point with 18 pucks (not counting keeping) so for some reason I decided to give him some more attention than my regular youth at this point. Seven seasons later he has 58 pucks and still going strong with his training.

On his second day with Lokomotiv Smörgåsbord he was given the opportunity to attend to one of my training camps. I decided to let him train as a winger just to quiet him down a bit, because he never stopped talking about wanting to score. So his first package was Forward Package No.1 (Power, Shooting & Puck Control) starting on the 16th of January 201

So after his first season he gained three pucks in power, one in shooting and two in puck control. Pretty average if you ask me. But for some reason I still decided to go for him as he was unmaxed in power and still had great potential because of his all-round secondaries (for a 15 year old at least). I knew he was lacking stamina but I didn’t bother at this point.

Somewhere along here I really started to realize that this is a player that really had the chance to become a star player in my team. Pierre gained three pucks of power over this season, two shooting and another in puck control.
Also training my player like this made me realize that it wasn’t working. I need more secondaries to make him work. His lack of stamina is very noticeable. So from here I changed my way of training my youth players from maxing power to making them more all rounded. So far it’s been working out great for me. However things didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to, because the season after, I had a lot of time off MZ due to work, holidays and what not.

So over the course of that season he only gained two pucks in shooting, and no TC. He also missed seven training sessions due to holiday. This shows the importance of using training camps and being active in their training, shuffling them around and whatnot. There is a lot of lost training during this season but there’s nothing to do about that now.

However his next season really made up for what he lost in his previous with ITC on quickness, shooting and stamina and another training camp (Defender No.9) containing checking, puck control & shooting. He gained 9 pucks over this season which really made him catch up to become “average” again considering how much training time he lost.
And at this point I decided that he would become one of my centers, mainly because I knew that I would need a few new ones in a couple of seasons.

So starting next season he would go to Center Package No.4 (Stamina, Quickness & Player Intelligence).
He also started playing more seriously in my roster, both in Uxx and seniors, thus boosting his form. At 19 he had 46 pucks (again, not counting keeping). To properly make him work as a center he needed more checking and quickness, preferably more skating as well but at this point I kept my focus at increasing his stamina while slowly increasing his checking and quickness.

This is how Pierre looked when he was playing in our U21 NT. He gained 7 quick pucks that season, it was a tough call sending him to TC but he needed pucks in stamina and quickness so he was given the chance to improve himself at the Wild Card Package No.4 (stamina & quickness) here he unfortunately maxed out at 6 in quickness. This was the first real setback for my young star.

Over the next season he maxed out in checking, getting his 8th puck and since he is maxed at quickness he now started training his skating. It’s currently at five going towards his sixth. Obviously he started to slow down with his training pace, hence his slow last few pucks. But he is still showing great progress and will soon have 60 pucks, which isn’t shabby for an U23 player.
This article shows that it’s very important to always send your prospects to training camp, if they don’t go each season it can be “game over” before they even turn 23.
I’ve also found it important to cycle my players around the field to give them even training, not just maxing them at one single attribute. I did this earlier but moved away from that system. It’s also easier to be competitive in U18/21/23 tournaments with players with a little bit less power but more stamina and so on.
By mvalkeinen