Wednesday, January 15, 2003

It becomes easier to remember the passing years have gone. In the past, it would take me most of a January before I started automatically punching in the new year. Now, a couple of days in I am fully aware that it is now 2003.

PHILOSOPHICAL INTERLUDE #5

When I was at the convention I went to a clinic that dealt with man down defense. This was by far the most people that I saw attending a single talk. Next door there was another coach talking about aggressive or attacking defense. This room was almost half-full, or almost half-empty. It depends, of course, on your point of view. This struck me, and I pondered the whys and the wherefores that would lead to this state of affairs.

I was naturally more interested in the attacking defense even though it was Attacking Defense 101 and I was looking more for something at the 400 level. The thing that came to my mind was how many coaches desperately want to learn how to have success in man down (penalty on us) situations. Stuff (penalties) happens. It occurs to me that the reason for this stampede running to MDD knowledge is that there are no cut-and-dried recipes for success when your team has one less man. I personally focus on trying to help the other team to make a mistake or kill their own up time by doing little things to disrupt their pattern, not by implementing fancy zones or rotations that can break down easier with one less man.

When all is said and done, if the skill levels are similar and the EMO executes, the MDD is going to get scored on fairly often. Everyone is searching for answers for the man down to take home and "put in". This will be ongoing I suspect, because it is so difficult to play defense of any kind with one less player, and as long as there is a stick involved there will be some whacking and yacking, and people will find the penalty box from time to time. I digress.

Every coach is resigned to the fact that their team will get penalties and they will have to play with a man down sometimes. This is the truth I guess, but I won’t give in to it for some reason. I preach and we practice to not get penalties much more than I work on man down techniques. I still think we can have that game with zero, that would be no time serving penalties, and that is what I work to achieve. It is not impossible. In this process of chasing what I perceive to be perfection in one area of play, I know my man down defense sometimes suffers. They accuse me of not giving them (MDD) enough love. That would be me. I make my greatest demands before the penalty happens. I don’t like to fix leaks all the time. Penalties on you give the advantage to the other team and they do it right now. It is like stopping the game, and giving the other team a nice neat and new start, a chance for momentum and a goal. Plus, the last time I looked that goal opening is really big compared to the size of the ball. It all looks very inviting when you have an extra man.

Ever since we started playing the kind of defense that depends on team synchronicity and not individual greatness or capability I have demanded that we get fewer penalties (hasn’t always worked). We can only play aggressive, attacking, we are coming after the ball defense if we do not get many penalties. There is plenty of potential violence built in the rules of the game as it is. Stay in control. My emphasis in teaching defense is getting everyone to understand the system and trust each other, not the kayak check and trash talking your match-up. Match-ups that favor us, and guys that have good individual skills are great to have, but they still must work within the team concept so that the goalie will never be left "naked". Everything is designed to make the goalie look good. It is not designed to have him (goalie) be our savior on every play or shot. I want to put our goalie in a situation where he needs only to come up with a few "big" saves in a game, not 20.

I am starting to fall asleep creating drills in my mind. I can almost taste it now. I can almost feel Jack Frost nipping on my coaching heels.

My step dad Bill died the other day. We four are off to be with my mother in Florida until Sunday.

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