MHA’s

In House Coach Certification Courses

Hold the course at your arena – save time and money!

One of the biggest challenges an MHA faces is getting all of their coaches certified by the November 15th deadline. Coaches forget and then everyone scrambles to find a last minute course. To complicate matters even more, the classroom and on-ice portions of the course are on different dates, and at different locations. It can be a nightmare.

We have the perfect solution! By utilizing your meeting rooms and ice we can hold the courses at your home arena. Get all your coaches certified on the same day, or the same evening!

All you need is a meeting room for 2-3 hours and 1.25 hours of ice. No more paying extra fees to a third party provider on top of the Hockey Alberta fee. We can set up the course at your arena and all that is required is that each coach registers and pays Hockey Alberta. I do not charge a fee for this, as I get compensated by Hockey Alberta.

The bottom line is you save valuable time and money, get coaches certified before the deadline, and increase the number of coaches that take the time to get the proper certification because it is close to home and all in one afternoon.

I run both the classroom and ice sessions for the following:

Coach 1 – Intro to Coach (Timbits and Novice)

Coach 2 – Coach Level – (Atom and Above)

Checking Skills – (Atom and Above)

Safe Checking Skills for Players

Essential for Bantam players – valuable for Atom and above!

In September most MHA’s offer a checking skills session to the first year Bantam players. With the new body checking rules there will now also be players entering 2nd year Bantam and Midget that have no experience playing contact hockey as well.

With these new rule changes, we believe it is essential for all players aged 13-15 to have a safe checking skills session at the start of every season. With safety as our #1 goal in minor hockey, these should be taken seriously and have ice and resources set aside for them each September.

Checking is a four step journey that should be started in Atom. The four steps are angling, stick checks, body contact, and lastly body checking. We believe that MHA’s should be more proactive and start having checking clinics for players every season starting in Atom.

I have over 15 years experience coaching minor hockey at the contact levels, I am certified in checking skills by Hockey Canada, and I am certified to teach the safe checking skills course to coaches.

By utilizing your ice and coaches as assistants we can keep costs low. Prices start at only $85.00 per session.

We can also arrange to do the coach certification course in the morning, and then use the on-ice portion to teach players.

Coach Development Courses

The best way to help our kids is to invest in our coaches!

Having your head coaches certified is not the end of the coach development process. Many times MHA’s have a Director of Player Development, but do not have a Director of Coach Development – which is way more important when developing players. You can spend time and resources training 30 players with a skills session. Or you could spend the same time and resources training 30 coaches, who in turn could better train 400 players on a weekly basis.

We offer a full line-up of coach development courses. They are classroom based including a power-point presentation and “hot-stove” discussions between the instructor and coaches. The best way to reinforce the classroom sessions is to follow up with an on-ice session with the coaches, or with players and coaches.

We can do any number of courses you require, however we recommend the 5 course package. One presentation each month from November to February. Topics include:

Effective Practice Planning
Small Area Games
Teaching checking for all ages
Teaching team defence
Goaltending

Evaluations and Mentoring Services

Stop evaluating the process and start evaluating the kids!

Sometimes MHA’s need an independent, non-biased, credible second set of eyes to evaluate players, settle disputes, watch bubble skates, or help with coach pics.

With over 15 years experience evaluating players, drafting teams, and working on evaluation committees I can help.

For coaches that want to learn more as their children grow!

So you took the coach course back in Novice and have been coaching your child ever since. Awesome! But now your child is in Peewee and the stuff you were teaching in Novice is no longer effective for the older players. Maybe it’s time to spruce things up a bit?

With over 6 years experience as a coach mentor I can help. Some of the services we offer include:

Practice plans
Season development plans
Watch practices and provide constructive feedback
Game feedback – what does team need to work on?
Help on the ice at practice
Drill suggestions – free of charge – email me any time

We can work at a one on one level or design and head a coach mentoring program within your association.