How to Run a Youth Hockey Practice: A Practical Guide for Coaches

By Andrew Tartar · Youth hockey coach and author of The Next Shift

A good youth hockey practice isn't measured by how many drills you fit into an hour. It's measured by how much your players actually develop during that hour.

Youth hockey coaches don't get unlimited ice time. You may have 60 minutes—sometimes less—to work on skating, puck skills, passing, shooting, team concepts, compete level, and everything else your players need.

That makes the way you structure practice incredibly important.

I've learned that the best practices aren't necessarily the most complicated. They're organized, fast-moving, competitive, and designed to keep kids involved. Most importantly, players should leave the rink feeling like they worked hard, learned something, and still love playing hockey.

Here are some principles I use when planning practices for young players.

1. Have a Purpose Before You Get to the Rink

Every practice should answer one simple question:

What do I want our players to get better at today?

You don't need to fix everything in one practice.

Maybe your team struggled to break the puck out of the defensive zone in its last game. Build the practice around retrievals, passing options, wall support, communication, and getting the puck across the blue line.

Maybe you're seeing poor passing. Make passing the common thread throughout several drills.

Having a theme connects the practice instead of turning it into a random collection of drills. For younger players, I generally prefer one or two major teaching objectives rather than trying to address six different concepts in the same hour.

2. Don't Waste the First Ten Minutes

Ice time is expensive. Players shouldn't spend the beginning of practice standing around while coaches explain what they're going to do.

Have your plan ready before anyone steps onto the ice. Start with movement.

For a 10U team, that might mean skating without pucks, edge work, knee touches, transitions, stops and starts, or another skating exercise. Then introduce pucks and continue moving.

The goal is simple: Get their feet moving immediately.

Coaches can use those first few minutes to get goalies warmed up and prepare the next part of practice without bringing everyone to a stop.

3. Keep Kids Moving

One of my biggest rules for youth hockey practice is: Avoid long lines.

If ten players are standing in line while one player performs a drill, most of your team isn't practicing hockey.

Look for ways to divide players into smaller groups, run drills from multiple locations, use stations, or have several players active simultaneously.

Think about repetitions per player, not just repetitions of the drill. A simple drill that gives every player eight meaningful repetitions can be far more valuable than an elaborate drill that gives everyone two.

4. Teach Skills Inside Hockey Situations

Skating and puck skills matter enormously, especially at younger ages. But players also need to understand why and when they use those skills.

Instead of only practicing a pass, create situations that require players to:

• Look before receiving the puck
• Communicate with teammates
• Make themselves available as a passing option
• Protect the puck under pressure
• Decide whether to pass, skate, or shoot
• React after a turnover

This is where small-area games become extremely valuable. Players aren't simply executing instructions. They're reading the game and making decisions.

5. Explain Less and Rep More

We've all done it. Players gather around the whiteboard. The coach starts explaining a drill. Then explains another detail. Then another.

Before long, you've spent five minutes talking while twelve kids are leaning on their sticks.

Keep explanations short. Show them where to start, demonstrate the key movement, identify the one or two things you want them concentrating on, and get them moving.

You can coach the details during the repetitions. At 10U especially, players generally learn more by doing than by listening to a five-minute explanation.

6. Correct Mistakes Without Killing the Flow

Coaching matters. Constantly stopping practice doesn't.

If one player makes a mistake, pull that player aside for a quick correction while the drill continues whenever possible.

If everyone is making the same mistake, that's different. Stop the group briefly, explain the correction, demonstrate it if necessary, and restart.

That distinction can save a surprising amount of ice time. Your objective isn't a perfectly executed drill. Your objective is better hockey players.

7. Build Competition Into Practice

Kids love to compete. Use that.

Turn ordinary skill work into races. Keep score during small-area games. Have players battle for possession. Create 1-on-1, 2-on-2, and 3-on-3 situations.

Competition adds intensity without coaches constantly having to demand intensity. It also teaches skills that are difficult to recreate with cones: puck battles, body positioning, decision-making, recovery, communication, winning and losing.

Those moments look a lot more like an actual hockey game.

8. Practice the Problems You're Seeing in Games

Games give coaches a tremendous amount of information. Instead of becoming frustrated by mistakes, turn them into your next practice plan.

If your team can't consistently clear the defensive zone, don't simply tell players to “get the puck out.” Teach them how.

Practice the defenseman retrieving the puck. Teach the winger where to be. Show the center how to provide support. Add forechecking pressure. Let them fail. Reset it. Try again.

Eventually, increase the pressure until the drill begins to resemble the situations they're seeing on game day. That's when practice starts transferring to games.

You can change the percentages depending on your team's needs.

If you're working with half ice, stations and small-area games become even more important. If you have two goalies, design the practice so both are seeing meaningful action instead of having one waiting while the other works.

The structure isn't the important part. Intentionality is.

Don't Coach the Fun Out of Hockey

Development matters. Structure matters. Accountability matters. But these are still kids playing hockey.

There should be moments when they're laughing. There should be competition. There should be creativity. There should be times when coaches aren't controlling every decision players make.

That doesn't mean practice should be chaos. It means we shouldn't confuse serious coaching with joyless coaching.

You can demand effort, discipline, teamwork, and attention while still creating an environment kids want to return to. In fact, I believe that's one of our most important responsibilities as youth coaches.

The Practice Is About the Players

It's easy for coaches to judge a practice by whether everything went according to plan. That's not the standard I try to use.

Did the players get enough repetitions? Did they have to think? Did they compete? Did we address something that will help them in games? Did we reinforce the kind of teammates and people we want them to become? And did they leave the rink wanting to come back?

If the answer to those questions is yes, you probably ran a pretty good youth hockey practice.

Put It Into Practice

Use these Next Shift Hockey resources to turn the framework into your next ice session: