Playing a Box Defense

Playing a box defense is one of the best ways to defend and to teach the kids.  Putting them in a position is the easy part.

Getting them to understand where to move with the puck is the challenging part. This picture may help you to diagram on your coaches board or to even send to the player to review on their own.

I've also built several slide shows that can be seen here that detail all of the player positions.

Left wing
Right wing
Left defense
Right Defense

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Breakaway Drill

Drill:

1. Line kids up on both sides of boards
2. Skate in and pick up puck from middle and stick handle and shoot
3. Change lines

Focus:
1. Picking puck up while skating
2. Stickhandling with head up, puck control
3. Making a move on the goalie
4. Picking a spot and shooting

Notes:
There are a lot of variations with this drill.
1. You could focus on backhand shots
2. A coach could play defense by chasing the player from behind to put pressure

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Stickhandling through the cones

Drill:

1. Line up players on each side of the rink (or net if you only have a half rink)
2. Players must pick up the puck and skate thru the cones
Note: have one set of cones in a straight line and the other spread apart
3. After completing the cones, skate in on the goalie and shoot.

Focus:
1. Builds stickhandling skills
2. Work on getting faster each time
3. Wide cones will focus on carrying the puck around tight turns

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