Help me improve my team

[rinkrat94 1]

Here's my situation:

I play starting D in bottom-level beer league, on the 2nd worst team in the league. I'm one out of 3-4 guys on the team with any hockey sense at all, and our play in the defensive zone is really starting to kill us. We've got one player who's leading the league in scoring, and he's good for 2-3 goals a game, but once he's shut down we're useless in the offensive zone, so we really need to get a lead and hold it.

After our first few losses, we sat down as a team and explained everyone's role in defensive zone - no one has the excuse that they don't know where to be. But time and time again forwards are leaving their checks, or not covering their zones. Let me get a couple of examples off my chest (from the game we lost 8-6 despite being up 4-0):

1. D men are battling in with all 3 opposing forwards in front of the net, center is no where to be seen. The forwards are joined by a pinching dman, and they overwhelm us 4-2 down low and score. Turns out a winger let his defensive check get away, and the center who was supposed to be covering the slot decided to go for a change.

2. It's 5-1, and I'm sitting on the bench watching the play. I see our winger start to creep towards center, despite us having absolutely no possession of the puck. I yell at him to stay on his man, and he looks right at, but he ignores my advice. Sure enough his d pinches in and gets an uncontested shot at net that goes right in. Exact same play happened again with a different forward later in the game, and all of sudden its 5-4, and they got on a roll and finished us off.

How do I get the players on the team to buy into defense, when all the forwads want to do is seagull for breakaways etc? We have a practice coming up in two weeks and we're going to go over defensive positioning again - how do I get the guys to take what they learn in practice and use it in game situations? This doesn't even being to address the problems we have with breakouts/passing etc., but if we could at least play in our zone properly we'd stand a chance.

When you play at that level, you are going to have to deal with those type of problems. Play at a higher level with more experienced players if it bothers you that much. Most Beginners are not going to take it as serious as you do.

[NuggyBuggy 0]

When you play at that level, you are going to have to deal with those type of problems. Play at a higher level with more experienced players if it bothers you that much. Most Beginners are not going to take it as serious as you do.

I couldn't agree more. I've gone through the same thing, played on beer league teams with mostly pretty low level players. None of the players knew each other when the team formed, so they came from a lot of different backgrounds. Players had a lot of different reasons to play. Some guys just wanted 15 minutes of skating time, and would take it no matter what. Some guys just wanted the camaraderie of being on a team. Some players wanted to get better individually, but almost none of them would make the sacrifices needed to get better as a team.

We had a coach and lots of practice ice for about two seasons, but it didn't matter. They'd learn something at practice but when it came to game time it was all out the window, every man for himself. It was in one ear, out the other. I mostly played center, and one game I swear I must have had to defend 10 or 15 2-on-1s or 3-on-1s. One season we lost about 90% of our games. Compared to the rest of the league, we were about the middle of the pack in terms of overall skill level, but it was obvious that lack of any concept of team play was a huge problem. We were the worst team in a bad league.

The worst players on the team were the most vocal, yelling or even swearing at teammates for mistakes, dishing out advice on the bench, slamming their sticks into the boards, talking trash, etc. Then there were the politics, guys who can't skate backwards scheming and campaigning for captaincy, badmouthing other players behind their back, etc. And on top of all that, there were the constant fights about ice time.

This went on for about 2 1/2 years for me. It was frustrating, but even though I was the best player on the team, I never really wanted to get involved with saying much. Players on this team had very delicate egos, lots of type-A personalities who figured they knew it all, and didn't take advice very well (though they would dish it out freely). I knew I didn't have the political skills or stomach to take on the issue.

One day I told some of my coaches (not for this team) about our team, and asked for advice about diplomatic ways to seek improvement. One told me flat-out that I should look for a better team to play with. I felt like that was a bit of a cop-out, that I should stick with it. I kept telling myself that different people play the game for different reasons, that this kind of strife was inevitable on a team with players of such disparate backgrounds. I tried to take it for what it was - a skate with a few guys who had become friends (albeit with a lot more numbskulls on the ice), and time away from the house.

I never really cared much about the losing. I had played on much higher level teams, so I didn't play on this team for the level of competition, or for bettering my game. But eventually I got sick of the politicking, the fighting and complaining, the bad attitudes on the bench and in the locker room, and the backstabbing, and I started dreading game time. One day I woke up and realized that life was too short, and my hockey time away from the kids too precious, to waste with even a handful of idiots I hated. I got sick of hoping things would get better, and realized they wouldn't, unless we got rid of half the team. I quit.

It was the best thing I could have done. I now realize that I was wasting my time with that team, and that no amount of coaching or pre-game talks or nights out spent trying to bond were going to change a team full of selfish players who didn't really care about improving anything except their individual stats. Instead, I formed a team with some people I knew. We had all played together and we all held similar things important - reasonable competitiveness, commitment to a team game, but mostly good times with good people who were going to be good teammates, both on and off the ice. Now my hockey time is much better spent, and I look forward to playing hockey again.

[JR97 2]

similar things important - reasonable competitiveness, commitment to a team game, but mostly good times with good people who were going to be good teammates, both on and off the ice. Now my hockey time is much better spent, and I look forward to playing hockey again.

Amen, Brutha.

[Jim A 4]

I've played on my share of bad roller/ice teams, the good thing is that since I play D and have the puck quite a bit (especially in roller) it gives me a bit of say in the matter..

basically if you are in position, I'll give you the puck, if not..no dice..

also, i tend to present things as a way to be more offensive, more goals etc..ways I can spring them on a breakaway, stuff the forwards like to hear..

I skated in a league with some college kids I coached (roller) and would just wait behind the net for all them to come back and run a breakout etc..

the key is once they start getting the puck when they are in position, it will make things easier (we all know that that's why you want to do it in the first place) but they will start telling each other where to be for the 2nd/3rd pass..

[NuggyBuggy 0]

also, i tend to present things as a way to be more offensive, more goals etc..ways I can spring them on a breakaway, stuff the forwards like to hear..

Well, that's certainly what the guys on my team would have liked to hear, our team was full of guys who would float around behind the other team's D looking for breakaways, but I'm not sure I would have wanted to encourage it. One time I got the puck behind our net. I'm looking for an outlet as I skate out, and before I'm even over our goal line EVERYONE on our team had already cleared our blueline and some were past center ice, when the other team had 3 guys forechecking deep.

[Hipster 5]

I've got the opposite problem. I have a guy on my team who's been playing a few years but can barely skate & has no clue where he's supposed to be. We tell him repeatedly that all he has to do in the d zone is cover the point but he runs around chasing the puck like a mite. When he's on the bench he's the first guy to give advice to the more experienced guys on the team & tell them where they're supposed to be & what they should've done.

There's a couple young college players on my team that are the cream of the crop in our beer league. This guy went to one of their college games and during the intermission went to their locker room & asked the coach if he could say a few words, lol.

Oh, yeah. College players and coaches LOVE it when someone like that offers to set them straight, lol. Man, that guy sounds like a real piece of work.

I played on a men's league team that had good talent, but no discipline and the stars apparently could not agree on who the stars were going to be from play to play.

I taped a game on video and isolated key plays where breakdowns led to a goal or selfishness led to open net opportunities being wasted.

Then I just played it in the locker room and made everyone watch it before I gave them their beer. (It was my night to buy) I left the portable TV to the guys for people to rewind and see how stupid and wasteful we were being. Some guys got the message. We went from the middle of the pack to the finals the next summer league and winter session.

[Jarick 5]

At that level, you'll probably move up next year. I know my current team has half the guys playing sound positional hockey, aggressively forechecking and backchecking, and playing a smart game, and the other half does the 5-man puck chase. Somehow we average out to be a good team (tied for 2nd of 8 teams).

Something weird is that it seems like half the team is playing a level down, the other half playing a level up. 33 of the goals are scored by 5 players, 11 scored by the other 14. Anybody else encounter that at lower levels?

[Neal 41]

Something weird is that it seems like half the team is playing a level down, the other half playing a level up. 33 of the goals are scored by 5 players, 11 scored by the other 14. Anybody else encounter that at lower levels?

Not uncommon at all I see it on a number of teams in the league I play in. Not sure if it indicates guys playing outside their level or if it just indicates different styles of players.

I know on our team, our top scorers are probably well ranked and fit into the level we're in. One or two might be playing down a level. Its tough to tell, never having played at the higher level.

Probably 3 or 4 of our poorer players are playing a level up. That is a big part of the reason we sit at around .500.