2018 OLMs & 2017 Knights
Off-Ice Training · 12 weeks · 36 sessions
Three things you want by week 12. Your words, not a coach's.
Four pieces from the Lake Monsters retro-patch line, one per phase. Pick them together before week 1 — a reward invented afterwards does not pull anyone through a Tuesday in February.
Ten XP a session, plus a point for every star you earn on quality. Finish a phase and the reward unlocks.
Only the jump numbers are truly reliable at this age — a tape measure beats a stopwatch. Film the sprint from the same spot every time.
| Test | What it means | Week 1 | Week 6 | Week 12 | Change |
|---|
One point for each thing you get right in the rep. Fifty is perfect. Run it at weeks 3, 6 and 12.
| Rep | Correct reaction | Explosive acceleration | Clean puck control | Beat the defender | Shot on target | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Score | 0 / 50 | 0 / 50 | ||||
| Right-hand number is your best score so far. | ||||||
The board ranks the work, not the talent — sessions finished, then XP, then your best run. Nobody's sprint time or jump distance is on here, and it is not going to be.
The progression in the source plan is sound. These are the changes made to it, and the ones still left for you to make.
The source plan peaked at 80 shots in a session and ran 150–200 a week on top of team ice. That is heavy repetitive load through a young shoulder, wrist and low back, usually with a stick that is slightly too heavy. Every session in this build has been capped near 40 quality shots. Stop earlier than that the moment the release gets sloppy.
Three off-ice sessions a week sit on top of Knights and OLM ice and games. On a game day or a heavy ice day, keep the deception and puck block and halve the explosive and shooting work. Total weekly load is what hurts kids, not any single session. This one is a judgement call every week, so it stays a rule rather than something baked into the plan.
Weeks 4 and 8 are now deload weeks and the rep counts in those six sessions are already halved. Same skills, same speed, less volume. They are flagged in red in the app so nobody quietly trains through them. Twelve weeks of rising volume with no down week is how a keen eight-year-old ends up flat or sore by week nine.
Hand-timing a 5 m sprint carries roughly two tenths of error, which is more than the real change you would see in twelve weeks at this age. Broad jump and lateral bound measure honestly with a tape. Film the sprint from the same spot if you want it to mean anything.
Flag a left-right difference over about 15% on the lateral bound. Treat it as a coaching cue, not an injury verdict.
The source plan had none. There is now a fixed five-minute sequence at the top of every session card: move, ankles and hips, ground work, hands, then three build-ups to nearly full speed. It is deliberately identical every time so he learns to run it himself by about week four.
The source plan was heavily forehand-biased. Backhand now progresses the same way everything else does: stationary mechanics in session 3, off a pass in 6, inside a deception in 8, on the move in 15, protection in 17 and 26, fakes in 21, forced under pressure in 29, double points in the 33 battles, and live with no warning in 34. Finishing all ten earns the Both Sides badge.
Testing at week 3 measures how well he has learned the test, not adaptation. Baseline week 1, retest weeks 6 and 12. Session 9 stays as a baseline-setter rather than a comparison.
The progression is right, and most parent-run programs never get past stationary skills. Stationary, then moving, then pressure, then uncertainty is exactly the Hockey Canada pathway. The constraint-led work is current best practice. And the best line in the whole document is the standard for deception: it worked if the defender moved.
Coaching the defender yourself is better than a teammate for this work, because a teammate cannot deliberately vary one cue at a time and you can. The only real risk is an uncalibrated adult — full height, two hands, full reach closes gaps no U9 defender ever will, and he ends up solving a problem he will never meet. These eight rules fix that.
Defend from your knees, or half-kneeling, for anything inside a few metres. An adult standing up has reach he will never face from a U9 defender, so he learns to beat a problem that does not exist. On your knees your stick and arm span are roughly a peer's.
One hand only, and use a cut-down or junior stick if you have one. Two hands and full reach turns every rep into a loss, and a kid who never wins stops trying.
Roughly a 50-50 success rate is the sweet spot. Much higher and there is no problem to solve; much lower and it stops being fun. Adjust your speed, not his task.
Decide before the rep what makes you commit, and tell him nothing. For example: commit when the puck crosses the cone, or when his shoulders turn. A fixed rule is readable, so there is something real to learn. Reacting on instinct just makes you unpredictable, which teaches nothing.
This is the thing a teammate cannot do for him. One session you always bite on the shoulder fake; the next you only bite on the eyes. He learns which cue is doing the work because you controlled the variable.
Your job is to make him solve a problem, not to beat an eight-year-old. If you find yourself competing, stop and reset the rep.
Every defender session runs the same three stages: shadow him at half speed, then react properly but late, then compete. Start each new skill at stage one even in week eleven.
Then ask what was open. Coaching mid-rep removes the perception work, which is the entire point of phase three.
Identical every time, on purpose — he should be running it himself without being told by about week four.