After months of meetings and in-depth discussions, New York State Amateur Hockey Association is getting ready to launch a pair of initiatives designed to enhance player development opportunities around the state. 

Both initiatives are set to begin within the next several weeks.

The first is designed to provide new coaches working with the state’s youngest hockey players with coaching education opportunities that will help them teach the fundamental skills to help youngsters get a proper start in the game.

In partnership with the coaching education program, along with ACE coordinators and those involved in the American Development Model, the state will conduct coaching clinics for first-time coaches who have volunteered to work with 6 & Under players this season. 

“Hockey is a sport that you need to understand skills in order to teach the game. We’re going to focus on giving new coaches a strong foundation on how to teach basic skills,” said Joe Trimarchi, N.Y. District administrator of the ADM.

Clinics will be held in each of the state’s four sections and will feature a classroom session followed by an on-ice practice where instructors will work with a local team to run a practice while breaking down each drill to coaches watching from the stands. Each clinic will be free to coaches who are working with 6 & Under players this season.

“It’s really about working on what to coach as opposed to the how to coach, which is what we focus on most in the clinics,” said Chuck Gridley, coach-in-chief for the New York District.

“Most of these new coaches are not prepared for what they’re up against when they step out on the ice. They don’t know how to handle a group of really young kids. It’s simple things like you can’t let them stand in line. So how do you want to run a practice without constantly putting them in a line? What are some things you can do? What are some strategies so that they’re not standing there twirling around and pushing each other? How do you communicate with them? You can’t explain things to a 6-year-old the way you explain it to a 16-year-old.”

The goal is to have upwards of 40 to 50 new coaches attend each clinic and then take what they’ve learned back to their own associations and use this knowledge in their own practices.

“Hopefully we’ll get some good reviews and people will think it was worthwhile and spread the word,” Gridley said. “Then next year we can make it available to even more new coaches.”

The second initiative the board is ready to roll out is designed to enhance the New York Development Model, which closely follows USA Hockey’s American Development Model but is tailored to meet the specific needs of teams and associations around the state.

“We’re different than [other states], we’ve got so many different ways of doing it. New York has its own culture when it comes to hockey. So, we created a model that says here’s what the ADM is and have catered it to meet our needs,” said Mark Hogan, District ACE administrator/associate coach-in-chief.
 

The committee is in the process of identifying three associations within each section to serve as pilot programs in the hope of creating a framework to help programs expand their numbers while promoting skill development. The first step is to find out what the specific needs are in each association or part of the state and then provide them with resources to help them achieve their goals.

“What are your needs? How can we help and support you?” Hogan said. “We’ve got to figure out how to implement that. And so, working with a handful of organizations throughout the state will help us gauge how we can do this throughout the state for all organizations.”

The plan is to work with teams at the Tier I, Tier II and Tier III levels, with the goal of helping players at the lower levels develop the necessary skills to advance to higher levels of competition.

Trimarchi said the goal is to put the focus back to development by providing associations with the educational resources needed to promote long-term individual player growth rather than wins and losses.

“We’re trying to get it back on track, and we thought this would be a great way to do it, to give them resources to help them and make it fun for them,” he said. 

“We want to help these associations to build their base. That’s why we are going to give them the education they need to enhance their programs and to develop players by improving their skills so they can move on to a higher level.”

The plan is to work with the individual pilot programs during the 2024-25 season to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to providing resources to the grass-roots level. Then the pilot programs will meet at the NYSAHA Annual Meeting, set for May 2-4 in Hauppauge, to discuss the results. From there the committee hopes to create a uniform plan that associations around the state can implement next season.

More information on dates, times and locations of both initiatives will be released in the coming days and will be posted on NYSAHA’s Facebook and Instagram pages.