Fun Drills for Young Kids?
 

I'm looking for some fun drills for younger kids (anywhere between 4-6 and 7-8) for our practices.

For the younger group we'll play Cops-n-Robbers, Asteroids (shooting tennis balls at them as they skate by), British Bulldog and What Time is it Mr.Wolf.

For the older kids we'll play Shootout Survivor and Battle (5 skaters, 1 goalie, 1 puck. All 5 skaters battle each other to score a goal).

I'm looking for a few more fun drills that incorporate skill development but are still entertaining for either group.

Thanks!

My kids loved British Bulldog and Asteroids. Do British Bulldog with pucks too, where the bulldog has to knock the puck off their sticks.

Other favorites:
Obstacle courses. Especially ones where they have to superman slide under a stick.

Freeze tag. A buddy has to skate a tight circle around you to unfreeze you. I always thought they'd be sick of freeze tag, but they loved it. There was also a variation of tag that I never got to try - pair them off and have one chase the other in a limited space, blow the whistle and then the chaser switches to chasee - good for learning to change directions fast.

Also, any drill becomes funner if you make it a race. :)

Thanks Beth. We do all of those as well.
For Freeze Tag we used to make the kids skate/crawl under the frozen players legs in order to unfreeze them.

For the older boys, we did a stick-handling drill where all the skaters were in an offensive zone. The players all started with pucks around the parameter. One coach would stand in the middle. On the coaches mark, the kids would begin skating between the blueline and goalline.
If the coach managed to steal a puck and skate it out of the zone, that player now became a 'stealer'. You did this until there was only one kid left.

My problem is, I'm trying to find fun drills where the kids can learn their cuts, stops, turns, etc while still making it somewhat entertaining.

I've seen too many practices where over half is taken up with hard skating drills.
I know that some feel this is necessary and to some degree I can agree.
I just wonder if there's any drills out there that can reinforce skill development but at the same time have a fun slant to it.

I coach baseball too and it's amazing how many great and fun drills can be implemented while still promoting skill development.
Baseball is such a slow sport, but it seems there are way more fun drills that can be used as opposed to hockey.

At times, in hockey, when watching some practices it seems more like an army regiment than a bunch of young kids learning a sport. I'm trying to change that for our team.

USA Hockey's "Small Area Games" book has lots of ideas... I have the actual book, but on a quick search, I couldn't find where to order it. But the PDF is free.

Found on this page:
http://www.usahockey.com//Template_U...CO_07&ID=19650

Direct link to the PDF:
http://usahockey.cachefly.net/Coachi...aGamesBook.pdf

Charriot Races are always good. Kids have fun and teaches them a better stronger stride.

Have all the kids pair up. Standing 3-4 ft across from each other and place their stick butt ends on the ice. They hold their stick by the blade with their fingers. On the whistle they have to let go of their stick and catch their partners stick. If successful take a step back and repeat until there's only one set left. Losers do reverse push ups at the end. Lay on their back, stick across their chests and push up. The kids love that one.

That PDF is great!
Thanks Otter!

And thanks to the others with great suggestions as well!

Hey a fun game don't know if mentioned yet is Torpedos

kids line up at the goal line while all the teachers have pucks at the side boards the kids then try to skate to the other goal line without getting hit if hit there out, mind you some kids are going to cheat so if they be sure to peg them a little hard next round ;)

Yeah, we call it 'Asteroids' and we use tennis balls instead.
The kids seem to love that one as well.

Red Light, Green Light.

Can be done with just skating (working on quick stops), and can be done with puck possession (trying to maintain puck control while skating).

Here's one that is similar to the one someone posted about catching the sticks. It works great for working on acceleration and proper starts:

Have the kids make 2 lines facing the coach. The coach stands about 6-10 feet away from the two lines with 2 tennis balls(or any other ball that bounces). The coach holds a ball in each hand and extends his arms out to the side, and drops both of them at the same time.

When the coach drops the ball, the kids in both lines have to accelerate to catch the ball before it bounces on the ice a 2nd time.

I have a few drills you can use!

Head coach

Yeah, torpedo an awesome game for the kiddies. Hell, I still love playing it when I'm out there.

This is one I see all the time in early hockey and skating classes, and kids love it. Especially if you give some incentive to be the first person across the rink so you get them moving pretty fast.

I know a drill that is both fun and helps develop scoring and skating skills that I'm sure your 7/8 year olds can participate and have fun with. On one half of the rink set up pylons at both face off dots just outside of the blue line and put a puck in the middle between the blue line and the top of the defensive face off circles. Players line up in the two corners behind the goal line, and when the whistle is blown they both skate over and around the pylon in a race for the puck and who ever gets the puck first tries to score and the other player will try to stop him. Often they get there at around the same time and battle for it, its a fun drill and helps young kids develop skating and turning at high speeds as well as battling for the puck and that scoring prowess that really shows once they start playing in actual games.