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Coach Casey's Corner
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The face of youth hockey is being changed by these three letters: ADM.
The American Development Model (ADM) is in full swing across the country and it promises to dramatically change the sport. Whether this change is good for small organizations or not depends on your point of view.
So what is ADM? Simply this: no longer will the majority of Mites ( 8 and under) engage in travel hockey. And expect this change to come for Squirts in the coming few years as well. Instead, children will engage in "station" drills and cross-ice games that emphasize skills development and downplay game strategies.
As a coach, I strongly support the use of split ice, small ice games and lots and lots of skills development for young players. But as a coach and parent of former players, I know children thrive on competition and it remains to be seen if families will settle for "jamboree" hockey where children play cross-ice games only. I suspect a level of boredom could set in and the "predator' organizations with so-called elite A and AA teams will recruit these families to their programs. Thus, the problem of too much competition too soon continues.
ADM is a reaction to overkill by youth coaches, managers and parents who book too many games, too much travel, too much competition and too little socialization. Even nearby "elite" teams west of us schedule long and expensive journeys to far-off states for Squirts who might rather play pond hockey if they had their way.
For now, let's put a "plus" in the skills development column for the ADM concept.
However, ADM also calls for putting children on the ice 3 and 4 times a week in a split ice environment with as many as 60-80 children participating at one time. This model falls apart for smaller clubs who struggle to build their numbers and have very tight ice schedules. At the same time, ADM touts encouraging children to participate in other activities to grow them as people, but with on-ice time four or five times a week, who has time for that?
That's a "minus" in the "practicality" column for ADM.
We'll begin implementing some of the ADM principles this year within ECHA and work through the issues. However, the Carolina Hockey League has followed the lead of many states and eliminated Mite travel hockey. Talk is Squirt travel will be eliminated in 2012.
What do you think? Keep me posted.
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