Players of all levels need to understand that it is their own personal responsibility to make sure they keep developing. This might seem to be common sense, but unfortunately, far to many players and parents of players, think that their coaches will take full responsibility to develop all players to reach their potential. This is not to say that coaches will not be a part of developing or that many coaches don't do a great job in development, but in reality, many coaches often take far less of a role than many folks realize. There are numerous reasons for this and at the numerous different levels, many reasons why development, especially long term development, is often less than you would expect.
Starting at the youngest levels, high levels of development are often not possible as many coaches at these levels are usually just starting out in their coaching duties and lack the knowledge base to create an environment that is conducive to high levels of development. As much as the sport needs these coaches to generously volunteer their time to coach, the reality is that their lack of experience compromises the athletes opportunity for meaningful growth. Compare this model to many of the European programs like the Russians, Czechs, Sweds etc. where they have instituted coaching models where they make sure the coaches working with the young players are highly qualified and strictly enforce what is taught at each level. They also make sure their players are practicing far more than playing games. It's no wonder that these countries produce far more top level players than the US and Canada percentage-wise. Both the North American countries have long recognized this fact and are doing all they can to adopt the Euro models, but both countries lack the tools to enforce that most of their players are provided high level coaches and a standard of instruction that is universal. They are trying, but the differences in cultural attitudes toward autonomy are very different from the Euros. Instead of all our players being given equal opportunity for growth, many players lack instruction that is meaningful or appropriate for their age or skill levels.
As players do move up the ladder to the higher levels of the sport, like juniors and college or even pros, a different level of challenges are faced for long term development. First off, coaching at these levels are far more geared to short term winning, than long term development. Again, this is not to say that there are not a lot of fine coaches out there that don't do a good job with individual development, but whenever winning becomes the deciding factor if coaches keep their jobs development, long-term, becomes a secondary priority. This is especially true for second tier players on these teams, as their needs often take a back seat to those of the top tier. This being the case it's all the more important that these players take a much larger responsibility for their individual development. At the professional level, they usually do a better job of trying to address the entire roster's needs as they have the much larger staff of qualified coaches. However, once their seasons start, their long grueling travel schedules and large amount of games vs practices makes it difficult for developing. Individuals playing less than a regular shift in these environments must find opportunities to continue their own development with extra time spent on their needs in creative ways. Again at the professional level, you often see these players working before or after practice with coaches to help them progress.
Had an interesting conversation with the Head Coach of the USA 18 Development team, Kurt Klinendorst, last month about the development model the USA National teams have adopted. Here's a coach who left the coaching ranks of the AHL to step into a model that is pure developmental. That by removing the pressure to win, all his players totally focus on development and how he and his staff are totally plugged into all his players. He mentioned that all his players have an understanding that everything they work on is for growth, that the lines of communication are always open and he tries to treat each and every player like there were his sons. The interesting thing about this mentality, from my perspective, is that all teams could be run this way and that in reality most teams that have long term success, usually are.
At all the above levels is does come down to first identifying the areas that need the most work and then developing a plan and way to work on these. In an earlier post there are some ideas for how to go about finding ways to supplementing practice for skating and stick skill development. Those ideas are just a starting point and just two areas that might need improving. There are many other areas that might need shoring up, from skills to game knowledge and by being creative these can be improved upon, but again the message is don't sit back and wait for someone to deliver them to you on a silver platter, BE PROACTIVE.
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