Teachers or Coaches?

The gaps between professional hockey and the junior ranks are obvious to most hockey enthusiasts, including the amount of practice.

With NHL teams having three or four games a week, the number of practices decrease.
In junior hockey, gaps between games may drag on. Take the Edmonton Oil Kings, for example: they played last Saturday night against the Vancouver Giants and don't play their next game until Friday against the Red Deer Rebels.

"I think it's a good idea to front-load your practices at the beginning of a week when you have several days between games," says Edmonton Oil King coach Derek Laxdal. "As you get closer to the game, you can break the time up into offensive teams, defensive teams and special teams.

With plenty of time to teach, keeping players engaged is crucial.

"Flow is very important in practice. If you have good flow in your practice, then you're going to have good flow in your games," says Laxdal.

"If you have good flow, you might be on the ice for an hour and 15 minutes, but if you're doing lots of things it feels like 20 minutes - and then you have good flow."

Gord Thibodeau, coach of the Alberta Junior Hockey League's Fort McMurray Oil Barons agrees with Laxdal, but only to a point.

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