A View From the Side
A new monthly feature from Andy Jackson, our Coaching Guru. Please tune in to read the "Great Ones" words of wisdom.
Space but not as we know it!!!!
“It’s space Jim, but not as we know it” – a well famous quote from a Vulcan sitting on the deck of the USS Enterprise. Whilst this fictional character was making a reference to the galaxy and beyond the relevance to hockey is you may think is limited. How wrong can you be?
Ok, an average hockey pitch is approximately 5,0002m’s in size. Given that we have 22 players on it at one go (unless Rob Kelly has been yellowed again!!!), this equates to about 2302m’s per person. If we have so much space available why is it then that we see endless examples of school yard sport at Lockwood with every one chasing the ball? Think Zidane, Scholes or even Teddy Sheringham for that matter, the one thing they all do is find space. They are not the quickest players but they always appear to have time. And yet conversely it would appear that players at Huddersfield HC do not appreciate this fact, we just persist in running.
If one looks at basketball or netball they operate in a much smaller area and yet players find space. Ok screening (and blocking) would be blown for obstruction in hockey but they do adopt techniques that have a relevance to hockey. Players are continually on the move, they step back and review where the ball is, where there team have an overload (in essence more players in an area than the opposition) and where they need to be to exploit this advantage.
Depth and width are two themes that have been repeated throughout the training sessions. We have also covered movement on attacking free hits. We have outlined and had rammed down our throats scanning (pre / post). All of these help create space. But awareness of space is something that we have only touched on and in fairness largely comes from within. You should be looking when you haven’t got the ball as to where space is and how you can exploit it.
So all you Captain Kirk’s boldly go and hunt out that space – lets use the space between the ears to our advantage!!!!
Yours for now Action
