Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 November 2014 09:33
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
Every so often a kind soul would pass my way and say something like, “You’re doing a nice job with your team, Hartz.” It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the kind words, but I was always left to asking myself, “Nice compared to what, compared to who?”
Really, how does a coach really know? I wondered what another coach would be doing with my team. What talents might they pull out of my team that I was not? Would my team with a different coach develop an alternative identity for better or for worse?
All that said, I know when I think I am watching a well-coached team. I see certain things that at least to me really stand out. And I make a distinction between a well-managed team and a well-coached team.
Sometimes when I watch NHL teams, I think I see a well-managed team. Some, if not many, head coaches in the NHL are really more managers. They manage the talent they have and some do it extremely well.
I believe the superior coach, however, not only manages, but s/he coaches, too. The superior coach teaches. I don’t think it is as common as others believe it to be. Good teachers have a multitude of methods to teach their students. It’s complicated.
Yet when I watch a game, often I think that I know the team is well-coached or not so well-coached. Do I really know? How do I know? It is everything. It is accountability. It is support … from synergy to energy to the way the team communicates. The way a team communicates … that’s a big one.
The other night I was watching UMass Lowell against Notre Dame. It was a fun game and fun also because these two coaches have different “team” personalities. At least in my eyes they do. Often Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson has demonstrated to me a strong and structured defensive team. I see it and I assume others see it, too.
And no offense to Coach Jackson – he has probably forgotten more than I know – but I am so much more attracted to Lowell head coach Norm Bazin and his style of play. I put Norm at the top of my list of top coaches in America. I don’t know him well at all but when I see his team I believe strongly that I am watching a very well-coached hockey team.
In my eyes, well-coached teams do have good defensive structure. The team is held accountable to their duties. The players understand and demonstrate “smart sticks.” Smart sticks are as obvious to me as the sun coming up in the morning. Smart defensive sticks get in the way of their opponent’s offensive intentions. If players understand what is going on out there, their sticks will communicate this.
Well-coached teams demonstrate both physical and emotional energy. You can see this by the way teams communicate. Do they talk? Do they physically communicate? Are they supportive of each other? Individual body language … any coach allowing bad body language out there ought to take it personally.
But to really get to the top I think today’s best coaches also have a great idea of how to teach offensive hockey. When I watch Norm’s team, it is super apparent to me that his offensive concepts are sound. Some believe that great offensive hockey has little structure. I don’t believe that. Great offense includes puck support – a concept I believe gets lip service from many. Coaches like Bazin require puck support through the three zones.
Great offensive teams demonstrate the fundamentals of puck support and puck movement to generate speed. Support is energy without the puck and energy to the puck (puck support). Teams that do this are fun teams to watch and Lowell fits into this category. Then once in the offensive zone they show they know how to attack the net. They often have a great net-front presence and generate their cycles off of their net presence. They stop on pucks and compete for pucks. They go to scoring areas. I could go on and on.
Then I walk into another arena or turn on another game, and I don’t see some of these things at all. Now I don’t believe one can judge a coach on any given night, but I know that over time, the “superior coached teams” will demonstrate many of the fundamentals I have mentioned above. Superior teams will demonstrate great fundamentals night after night. Sooner or later, these teams will expose your weaknesses if you too don’t adhere to their superior fundamentals.
There are a handful of college coaches out there I really see being superior coaches (keep in mind there are many I haven’t seen). Joining Bazin on my short list are Union’s Rick Bennett, Yale’s Keith Allain, Miami’s Enrico Blasi and Denver’s Jimmy Montgomery. Closer to home, Minnesota State’s Mike Hastings gets into the mix the old fashioned way – a little more basic in some ways, but always really good. I also want to give a shout out to Mel Pearson at Michigan Tech who has got his Huskies skating and playing well. There are lots of college teams I haven’t seen play much, so I don’t mean to leave anyone off my short list.
Now for our young youth teams, the criteria might change a bit … right? One would hope that a coach of a youth team would create an atmosphere for the players that would be well organized, safe and also supportive. Support comes in many different shapes and sizes, but support is love in various wrappings.
Providing a good environment and managing this atmosphere is important. But superior coaching requires more, and not every youth volunteer coach is going to have that. Coaching requires teaching of the fundamentals needed at each age of development and so on. If your youth hockey child is lucky enough to have a good manager serving as their coach, thank him or her for their selfless time. If you are lucky enough to have a good manager who is also a good coach/teacher, thank God. You are lucky indeed.
Kevin Hartzell was most recently the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen. A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-89 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. His columns have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s. His new book “Leading From the Ice” is now available at amazon.com.
