This hockey practice plan for intermediate players focuses on passing and shooting with accuracy and skating with speed and power. We’ll introduce a variety of fun drills to help develop passing and shooting fundamentals and apply those skills to game situations.
Phase 1 – Warm Up (0:00-0:10)
- Keep Away – 10 minutes. Players pair up and play keep away. Player with puck switches every 30 seconds on whistle.
Phase 2 – Figure 8 Front and Back Crossovers Drill (0:10-0:25)
- Coach blows the whistle or says “Go.”
- Players skate down the ice and back in a figure eight fashion around the circles.
- Players should use crossovers to turn around the corners.
- Have players perform two reps in each direction.
Phase 3 – Multi-Skate Drill (0:25-0:35)
- In the first section, skaters will plant one skate and push of with the other skate, but continue in a circle rather than pushing forward.
- Do this exercise with the other skate.
- In the second section, players start at one side of the boards, skate to an imaginary line connecting the face off dots, then to center, then to the next line of dots.
- At each imaginary line, they have to execute a proper stop and start.
- In the third section, players skate forward, again to an imaginary line splitting this third of the ice into quarters. Then they switch to skating backwards, then to forwards, etc.
- Have the players execute 3 reps in each section.
Phase 4 – Semicircle Shooting (0:35-0:45)
- Coach blows his whistle or says “Go” to start the drill.
- Players shoot in succession going from one side to the other.
- When all players have shot once the drill is over.
Phase 5 – Passing While Skating Drill (0:45-0:55)
- Coach blows his whistle or says “Go.”
- Both players will skate towards the net, and they have to pass it back and forth at least three times before they get to the net.
- Once they reach the net, one player can take a shot on goal.
- Run drill for 5-10 minutes.
Phase 6 – Around the Cones & Shoot Drill (0:55-0:65)
- Coach blows his whistle or says “Go.”
- Player 1 skates around the cone and to the slot.
- Player 2 passes to player 1.
- Player 1 receives the puck and shoots.
- Player 1 goes to back of opposite line. Player 2 now skates around the cone to the slot and receives a pass from player 3.
- Drill continues in this pattern.
- Run drill for 4-8 minutes.
Phase 7 – 3 Goalie Drill (0:65-0:80)
- Coach blows his whistle.
- Teams compete 3-on-3 in each zone. Each zone has a goalie.
- Offense must make two passes before shooting.
- Teams rotate to a new zone to play against a new goalie every 2-3 minutes.
- After teams have played in all three zones, the one with the most goals wins.
